Festival
Vietnam, known as a country with colourful culture, has many traditional festivals such as Huong Pagoda Festival, Vu Lan Festival, Hung King Festival,… Of all the festivals in Vietnam, Tet is the most important and the biggest holiday. It is the Vietnamese New Year, marking the arrival of spring based on the Lunar Calendar. Tet is celebrated from the first day of the first month of the Lunar calendar (around late January and early February) until at least the third day.
The most typical feature of Tet is the preparation in each family. Every family redecorate their house with new painting, buying new outfits, welcoming their relatives to come back home. People mainly buy pictures, parallel sentences, new clothes, flowers and trees. The main flower of the North is peach blossom; the South is yellow apricot blossom. Besides, they also use kumquat tree to decorate the living room.
The Tet atmosphere clearly begins from the 23th of the last lunar month. That is the time for the God of Kitchen to return to Heaven to report what happened in the whole year to the Jade Emperor. There are lots of customs practiced during Tet, such as visiting a person’s house on the first day of the new year, ancestral graving, wishing New Year’s greetings, giving lucky money to children and elderly people, and even opening a shop. Vietnamese people usually return to families during Tet. All the office, factory, school, and construction are subjected to be off for some days and be flexible in arranging their work during the holiday.
Moreover, on the first day of Tet, children often receive a red envelope containing money from their elders. Usually, children wear their new clothes and give their elders the traditional Tet greetings before receiving the money. There are also public performances for everyone to watch. The celebrations can last from a day up to the entire week, and the New Year is filled with people in the streets trying to make as much noise as possible using firecrackers,
The most typical feature of Tet is the preparation in each family. Every family redecorate their house with new painting, buying new outfits, welcoming their relatives to come back home. People mainly buy pictures, parallel sentences, new clothes, flowers and trees. The main flower of the North is peach blossom; the South is yellow apricot blossom. Besides, they also use kumquat tree to decorate the living room.
The Tet atmosphere clearly begins from the 23th of the last lunar month. That is the time for the God of Kitchen to return to Heaven to report what happened in the whole year to the Jade Emperor. There are lots of customs practiced during Tet, such as visiting a person’s house on the first day of the new year, ancestral graving, wishing New Year’s greetings, giving lucky money to children and elderly people, and even opening a shop. Vietnamese people usually return to families during Tet. All the office, factory, school, and construction are subjected to be off for some days and be flexible in arranging their work during the holiday.
Moreover, on the first day of Tet, children often receive a red envelope containing money from their elders. Usually, children wear their new clothes and give their elders the traditional Tet greetings before receiving the money. There are also public performances for everyone to watch. The celebrations can last from a day up to the entire week, and the New Year is filled with people in the streets trying to make as much noise as possible using firecrackers,