Lunar New Year (Feb. 07, 2008) - Tết Mậu Tý

TẾT is celebrated on the same day as Chinese New Year. It is celebrated from the first day of the first month of the Chinese calendar (around late January or early February) until at least the third day. Tết shares many of the same customs of its Chinese counterpart. Many Vietnamese prepare for Tết by cooking special holiday foods and cleaning the house. On Tết, Vietnamese visit their families and temples, forgetting about the troubles of the past year and hoping for a better upcoming year. Tết traditionally marks the coming of Spring, so Spring (Xuân) is sometimes used interchangeably with Tết in Vietnamese.


Vietnamese people usually return to their families during Tết. Some return to worship at the family altar or visit the graves of their ancestors. Others return to where they grew up. Although Tết is a universal holiday among all Vietnamese, each region and religion has its own customs.

Tết can be divided into three periods, known as Tất Niên, Giao Thừa, and Tân Niên, representing the preparation before Tết, the eve of Tết, and the days of and following Tết, respectively.



Tất Niên
Preparations for Tết start months before the actual celebrations. People try to pay off their debts in advance so that they can be debt-free on Tết. Parents buy new clothes for their children so that the children can wear them when Tết arrives. Because a lot of commercial activity will cease during the celebrations, people try to stock up on supplies as much as possible.



In the days leading up to Tết, the streets and markets are full of people. Everyone is busy buying food, clothes, and decorations for their house. If someone lives far away from home, they will try to come home to celebrate Tết with their family.


Vietnamese families usually have a family altar, to pay respect to their ancestors. During Tết the altar is thoroughly cleaned and new offerings are placed there.

Traditionally, the three kitchen guardians for each house (Ông Táo), who report to the Jade Emperor about the events in that house over the past year, return to heaven on the 23rd day of the last month of the Chinese calendar. Their departure is marked by a modest ceremony where the family offers sacrifices for them to use on their journey. Often, Vietnamese families smear honey over the mouth of the image of Ông Táo, to allow him to say only sweet things about the family.


In the days leading up to Tết, each family traditionally cooks special holiday foods such as bánh chưng and bánh dầy. Preparations for these foods are quite extensive, and cooking them can take several days. Family members often take turns to keep watch on the fire overnight, telling each other stories about Tết of past years.


Giao Thừa (New Year's Eve)
Each home is thoroughly swept and decorated with flowers and offerings for ancestors by the night before Tết. At midnight, many families traditionally light firecrackers to welcome the New Year, though this practice was banned since January 1, 1995 due to safety reasons. In the morning, actual Tết celebrations begin.


Tân Niên
The first day of Tết is reserved for the nuclear family. In big cities, the streets are usually empty as most people stay at home or leave the city to visit their close relatives in the countryside. Children receive lì xì (red envelopes containing money) from their elders. Usually, children dress up in their new clothes and give their elders the traditional Tết greetings before receiving the money. Since the Vietnamese believe that the first visitor a family receives in the year determines their fortune for the entire year, people never enter any house on the first day without being invited first. The act of being the first person to enter a house on Tết is called xông đất or đạp đất. Usually, a person with a happy demeanor or who had experienced good luck during the previous year is invited first into the house. In some instances, any person with names such as Phúc (happy), Tài (wealth), Lộc (luck), will be invited to perform this act of xông đất. However, just to be safe, the owner of the house will leave the house a few minutes before midnight and come back just as the clock strikes midnight to prevent anyone else entering the house first who might potentially bring any unfortunate events in the new year to the household.


Decorations
Traditionally, each family displays a New Year Tree called cây nêu, consisting of a bamboo pole 5 to 6 meters long. The top end is usually decorated with many objects, depending on the locality, including good luck charms, origami fish, cactus branches, etc.


At Tết every house is usually decorated by hoa mai – Ume (in the middle and southern parts of Vietnam) or hoa đào – Prunus persica (in the northern part of Vietnam) or hoa ban (in the mountain areas).

In some cities, a kumquat tree is a popular decoration for the living room during Tết. Its many fruits symbolize the fertility and fruitfulness that the family hopes will come in the coming year.

Vietnamese people also decorate their homes with bonsai and flower tree such as hoa cúc, vạn thọ meaning great age, mào gà in Southern Vietnam and thủy tiên, hoa bướm in Northern Vietnam.

They also hang up Đông Hồ Painting and thư pháp (calligraphy picture).


Greetings
The traditional greetings are "Chúc mừng năm mới" and "Cung chúc tân xuân" (Happy New Year). People also wish each other prosperity and luck. Common wishes for Tết include:

* Sống lâu trăm tuổi (Live up to 100 years): used by children for elders. Traditionally, everyone is one year older on Tết, so children would wish their grandparents health and longetivity in exchange for mừng tuổi or lì xì.
* An khang thịnh vượng (Security, good health, and prosperity)
* Vạn sự như ý (May a myriad things go according to your will)
* Sức khoẻ dồi dào (Plenty of health)

Food

In Vietnamese, to celebrate Tết is to ăn Tết, literally meaning "Tết eating", showing the importance of food in its celebration. Some of the food is also eaten year-round, while other dishes are only eaten during Tết. Also, the food is usually vegetarian since it is believed to be bad luck to eat meat on that day. These foods include:


- Bánh chưng and Bánh dầy: essentially tightly packed sticky rice with meat or bean fillings wrapped in banana leaves. Bánh chưng (rectangular) and bánh dầy (circular) are symbolically connected with Tết and are essential in any Tết celebration. Preparation is time-consuming, and can take days to cook. The story of their origins and their connection with Tết is often recounted to children while cooking them overnight.

- Hạt Dưa: roasted watermelon seeds, also eaten during Tết.
- Củ Kiệu: pickled vegetables.
- Mứt, including mứt dừa, which is sweetened coconut: These dried candied fruits are rarely eaten at any time besides Tết.
- Cầu Dừa Đủ Xoài - In southern Vietnam, popular fruits used for offerings at the family altar in fruit arranging art are the custard-apple/sugar-apple/soursop (mãng cầu), coconut (dừa), papaya (đu đủ), and mango (xoài), since they sound like "cầu vừa đủ xài" ([We] pray for enough [money] to spend) in the southern dialect of Vietnamese.


This year 2008 is the year of the RAT. The rat is the first of 12 animals associated with the Chinese calendar. According to legend, the animals raced across a river to determine their order in the cycle. The rat crossed by riding on the back of the ox, jumping ahead at the last minute to win the race.


Eventhough you are far away from your family, relatives, loved one during Tết this year, there is still a way to stay in touch. We would love to deliver the token of love for you. Please visit our store NamHaFlorist to select the special lucky gifts for your relatives and/or friends in Vietnam. We would like to take this opportunity to thank you for supporting us in the past year. And for our friends, who are not our customers yet, we hope you will give us a chance to provide our excellent service to you in the near future.

We wish you and your family a happy, healthy, and prospereous year!!!



ThanhTrúc