Feature: Vietnamese celebrate Lunar New Year with Long-held traditions

The lunar New Year festival, the most important holiday in Vietnam, is the time of the year when the Vietnamese people renew their adherence to their age-old customs and traditions that have been handed down from generation to generation.

In an interview with Xinhua, Ngo Duc Thinh, director of the Vietnam Center for Research and Conservation of Culture and Belief, said the Lunar New Year festival, Tet Nguyen Dan or Tet in Vietnamese language, officially lasts for first three days of the lunar calendar.

However, preparation for the festival starts at least one week before while the Tet celebration will continue until the 15th of the first lunar month of the New Year.

From the 23rd day of December up to the Lunar New Year's Eve, it is the tradition of the Vietnamese people to erect a pole in front of their houses and hold a memorial ceremony for their ancestors.

Thinh explained that in the Vietnamese culture, Tet is a reunification time among long-lost relatives or among the living and the dead. That is why during the festival, Vietnamese families must hold a memorial ceremony for their departed loved ones at graves offering flowers, incense, and food and then invite the dead to come back their homes so that they can enjoy the Tet holiday along with the living.

By erecting a pole on the front-yard of the house with colorful paper buntings with animal-shaped pictures, small bells, Buddhist symbolic items, the Vietnamese people wished to tell the devils that "This is a land of humans so you devils cannot enter!"

The Lunar New Year's Eve is very sacred in minds of the Vietnamese people as it presents the transmission between the old and the new. It is also the day when members of the family who have been away must return home for a reunion and to enjoy the Tet holiday season with all the members of the family.

Like in other cultures, midnight between the last day of the old year and the first day of the New Year is of great importance to Vietnamese. During that special moment, people will watch fireworks displays, toast and pray for success, health, happiness and luck in the coming New Year.

At the stroke of midnight, everyone in the family gathers and gives lucky money, or "li xi" in Vietnamese, to the elderly and the children.

"Li xi" is a word that originated from China. In North Vietnam, it is called "mung tuoi" or "happy new age."

When one lunar year passes, people become one year older. Lucky money is given in a beautifully- decorated red envelopes along with the wish that in the coming year, children would eat more and grow taller and the elderly to stay healthy and live longer.

During the three-day Tet holiday, Vietnamese people tend to avoid speaking or doing bad things. "The people must remain happy and easy-going, a trait that should be maintained throughout the new year," Thinh said.

The three-day Tet holiday is celebrated in the following pattern: Father's Tet is on the First Day of New Year; Mother's Tet is on the Second; and Teacher's Tet is on the Third.

Tinth said that this means that on the first day, the Vietnamese visit husband's parents. On the second day, they visit wife's parents and they spend the last day with their teachers.

Tran Ngoc Vuong, an expert on Vietnamese medieval culture and history at the Vietnam National University, said that the celebration of the Tet festival is a testament to the enduring customs, beliefs and traditions of the Vietnamese people.

Vuong said that even with the onslaught of modernity and technological advances, the Tet festival customs would endure and would still be practiced by the Vietnamese people.

Sharing her experience on traditions of Tet holiday with Xinhua, Dang Thi Thuy, a middle-aged resident in Hanoi, said that what she likes most in the celebration is the bonding together of the whole family, especially in the lunar New Year's Eve dinner and get- together.

She recalled that when she and her younger brother were still kids, they always looked forward to enjoying specially-prepared delicious food. They also enjoyed lighting firecrackers which, according to tradition, would drive away evil spirits.

The Tet holiday normally falls in late January and early February on the western calendar and officially lasts for the first three days of the Lunar New Year.

But in recent years in Vietnam, the Tet holiday has lasted longer, sometimes up to a whole week or more as the two-day weekend before or right after Tet is included. This year's upcoming Tet -- the Year of the Goat -- will last for a total of nine days, from Feb. 15 to 23. Endi