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 Home●Festivals●Tet |
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Têt - The Lunar New Year Festival |
Têt, the Lunar New Year, falls in the first day of January of the
Lunar calendar. It
is more important to the Viêtnamese than Christmas and New Year celebrations
combined are to most Westerners or Christians.
People must return to their families, in their villages, for the
ancestral graves are to be maintained to and offerings made to the ancestors and their
spirits.
Homes are cleaned and painted and decorated with peach blossom and
kumquat trees.
Viewing the Têt Nguyen Dan (The Viêtnamese Lunar New Year) simply as New Year's
Day, as in the West, would display a poor knowledge of the people of
ViêtNam, or China.
Notwithstanding general business and world acceptance of the Gregorian Calendar's New Year,
it has not been
generally accepted in ViêtNam, and particularly in the countryside. |
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Têt
- The Meaning |
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To regard Têt Nguyen Dan (The Viêtnamese Lunar New Year) simply as New Year's
Day, as one would in the West, would display a poor knowledge of the people of
ViêtNam.
Viêtnamese
acknowledge it with a single days celebration but reserve their heart and soul for the
traditional Têt.
For a nation of farmers, seemingly woven into
the fabric of the land for millennia, it has always been
festivals celebrating the union of man with nature. In the continuum of seasons,
festivals are
a pause during which both the field and the tiller enjoy some rest after months of labour.
Literally, Têt Nguyen Dan means the first morning, of the first
day, of a new period. Traditionally, it marks the beginning of a new year on the
lunar calendar.
It is a period of universal renewal, a period in which the Viêtnamese
person feels surging of youth. This feeling is expressed in many customs: in the New
Year all actions should be pure and beautiful for it may be an omen foretelling
events in the twelve months that follow.
For three days, one takes painstaking care not to show anger and not to be rude
to people. The ultimate nagging mother-in-law will make peace with her
daughter-in-law; a discordant couple will smile pleasantly at each other; the
new world should be the best of worlds.
When the holiday ends, people will
resume regular daily activities with a new spirit followed by so-called opening rituals in
which the ploughman will open the first furrow, the official applies his seal to
the first document, the scholar trace the first character with his pen brush,
the trader receives his first customer.
Têt is also a family and a communal festival. People who can not return home for
Têt suffer acute nostalgia. All members of the extended family, therefore, try
to spend the holiday (the phrase used is to eat Têt) together under the same
roof.
Children vow to be well-behaved and are often given gifts of cash wrapped
in red paper. Friends and relatives exchanged wishes expressed in fine-sounding
expressions and gestures.
The ghosts, or memories, of ancestors are invited to
our world to share in the rejoicing.
Several times a day, joss-sticks are lit on family altars and offerings made
of food, fresh water, flowers and betel nuts.
Family graves are visited, generally,
before the end of the 'outgoing' year; fences are mended and the burial mounds
tidied up.
The entire house will be cleaned before Têt Nguyen Dan's Day. On the Lunar New
Year's Eve, all brooms, brushes, dusters, dust pans and other cleaning equipment
are hidden away.
Sweeping or dusting should not be done on New Year's Day and
the next two days for fear that good fortune will be swept away.
After the first
three days, the floors may be swept in a special routine. Beginning at the door,
the dust and rubbish are swept to the middle of the parlor, then placed in the
corners and not taken or thrown out until the fifth day.
The Viêtnamese Têt is an occasion for an entire people to share a common idea of
peace, concord and mutual love. |
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Sequence of Têt |
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Some days before
Têt Ong Tao (on the 23rd of the twelfth moon), people start
their preparations for the Kitchen God's journey to the Heaven to make his
report to the Jade Emperor.
This report includes the year's activities of the
household in which he has lived. A farewell and thank-you dinner is given to the
Kitchen God at Têt Ong Tao. The Kitchen God will need a week for his mission to
Heaven.
After the Kitchen God has gone to the Heaven, preparations for the New Year
festivities begin in enthusiasm. The week before New Year's Eve is called a
period of 'Tat Nien'.
Tat Nien (literally meaning the end or 'to extinguish the
year') is the celebration of the last session of a period, such as the last
class of school, the last day in the office, even the last bath, all with
parties and great ceremonies.
Some families set up a Têt tree outside the house in the week before New Year's
Eve. The Têt tree, called cay neu, is a bamboo pole stripped of its leaves
except for a tuft on top. It is supposed to ward off the evil spirits during
absence of the Spirit of the Kitchen God.
Sweeping and scrubbing must be done during this time as tradition discourages it
during the Têt holiday.
Two items required for the proper enjoyment of Têt are
peach flower branches and kumquat trees. Throughout the country, on bicycles of
roving vendors, flowers create great splashes of colour.
In the north, the soft
rose-coloured dao peach flowers decorate homes and offices while the bright
golden yellow branches of the hoa mai are preferred in the south.
Kumquat trees, about two or three feet tall, are carefully selected and
prominently displayed. In choosing a kumquat tree, the buyer must pay
attention to the symmetrical shape, to the leaves and to the colour and shape of
the fruit.
The bushes have been precisely pruned to display ripe deep orange
fruits with smooth clear thin skin shining like little suns or gold coins on the
first day. Other fruits must still be green to ripen later. This represents the
wish that wealth will come to you now and in the future.
When Têt is approaching, crowds of shoppers at the markets become thicker and
more frantic each night, holding up traffic as they jostle each other to reach
the counters with the best buys. Prices are a bit higher, but thriftiness is not
considered a virtue at Têt.
While shoppers roam the streets, banh chung patties wrapped in leaves are
steaming in giant vats. After being boiled until the outside of banh chung has
taken on a lovely light green tinge, it is taken out of the vats and cooled.
Banh chung will be eaten and used as offerings to worship ancestors during
Têt.
Before New Year's Eve, shops, stalls and restaurants are locked, leaving a
notice hung on the door announcing the date of reopening. Special dishes must be
completed to serve the family and its guests for the first three days of the new
year. |
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Food for Têt |
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As Têt Festivals is the biggest holiday in the
Viêtnamese calendar, people prepare for by decorating their homes and preparing
traditional dishes to enjoy themselves and entertain their guests. the
Viêtnamese' expression of 'An Têt' which covers all activities they do in Têt,
literally means 'Eating the Têt'.
On the last day of the old year, the Viêtnamese people attach great significance
to offering to their ancestor traditional dishes.
The traditional menu for Têt normally includes chan gio ninh mang (stewed pig trotters with bamboo shoot),
canh nau bong (dried pig skin soup), xoi gac (steamed sticky rice with monordica),
thit ga luoc (boiled chicken), xao hanh nhan (stir-fried almond),
nom du du
(papaya salad), and che kho (green bean pudding).
Some other traditional dishes,
also included in the menu, are now available in the market and include gio thu
(pork head pie) and gio lua (lean pork paste), cha que (roasted cinnamon pork
paste), lon quay (roast pork), and especially banh chung (square sticky-rice
cake).
Beside traditional dishes, no one can forget to make a tray of Mut Têt, a cup of
tea and betel and areca ready to entertain their visitors.
However, there are some differences in the Northern, Central and Southern parts
of the country because of different weather conditions and local agricultural
products.
In the North, the menu includes chun gio ninh mang, that gu luéc (carp cooked in
salted sauce), that dong (jellied meat), and kohlrabi, cauliflower or onion fried
with pig skin or lean pork.
In addition, there are two other items that cannot
be missed: 'Banh chung' (square cake made of glutinous rice, pork and green
beans wrapped in the dong leaves and boiled) and pickled scallion which
facilitate digestion.
Hue, the ancient imperial city to the north of Da Nang, is famous for
its royal culinary art in feudal times with hundreds of dishes created for the
occasion of Têt for the kings and the royal family.
Now at Têt, every family in
Hue has 'Banh Têt' (round shaped glutinous cake), sugarcoated coconut, roasted
melon seeds, different pork dishes. The menu may include beef cooked with
garlic and garlic oil, various kinds of meat pies such as gio thu (pig's head
meat pies), gio lua (Lean meat pie), grilled shrimp pies, boned pig's trotter
stuffed with meat, nem chua (fermented pork hash), pickled scallion, unripe
banana cooked in sweet and sour sauce.
Women in Hue make all kinds of preserved
fruit such as ginger, waxy pumpkin, apple, orange, lemon and carrot in various
shapes and colours. The traditional spring holidays here are rather cold, so you
can warm up with a cup of hot tea and a slice of Hue's special ginger.
In southern VietNam, centred on Ho Chi Minh City/SaiGon, every family has a pot of
pork cooked in coconut milk with salt as the coconut tree is very popular in his
region.
Southerners are accustomed to making use of its milk or its oil when
they prepare food, which gives cooked food a special flavour. Pork cooked in
coconut milk should have all the skin, fat and lean sections. When the pork is
done, the fat section looks transparent and the lean one turns reddish with the
flavour of coconut milk.
Side dishes include pickled green bean sprouts with leeks,
sliced carrot and turnip. Pickled bean sprouts with pork cooked in
coconut milk, can be eaten with relish.
Meat is more popular in the cooler parts of VietNam as storage has been more
difficult because of lack of proper cold/cool storage in homes.
Another popular dish is bitter melon stuffed with meat. Many older people
believe that bitter melon is antipyretic, nutritious and may treat many diseases.
Banh Têt and Banh trang (rice waffle) are a must on the Têt menu. Vegetables,
boiled or cooked meat and pickled bean sprouts (with leeks, sliced carrot and
turnip) wrapped in a thin banh trang make a good dish in hot weather. Banh
Têt usually goes well with dried turnips soaked in fish sauce.
The foods eaten at Têt are varied and diverse. The common theme throughout
VietNam is that the foods be prepared in the most grand and colourful manner and
to be of the highest quality to offer their ancestors
and to treat their friends and guests. |
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Têt and Viêtnamese cultural identity |
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Têt is indisputably the festival which epitomises Viêtnamese
culture.
Whilst the Lunar New Year is observed in the whole of East Asia influenced by
Chinese civilisation, each country in the region has adopted it in a way peculiar to that country by
adapting to
its psyche and historical and geographical conditions.
Many rites, festivities and
practices of Viêtnamese Têt are, therefore, distant variants of the Chinese
equivalent ceremonies. Some are even original creations which hark back to myths and legends of
the pre-Chinese period and which prevailed in an authentically Viêt culture of
the Bronze Age (first millennium BC) called the Red River Culture.
Viêtnamese New Year is called
Nam Moi (literal), just like the
Chinese Xin Nian.
However, its popular name is Têt, a phonetic deformation of
the Sino-Viêtnamese tiet, which designates the joint of a bamboo stem and also a
meteorological period of the year.
The passage from one period to the next may
cause meteorological disturbances (heat, rain, mist... ) to be exorcised by
means of ritual sacrifices and festivities.
There are several Têt in the
year (Têt of Cold Food, of Mid-autumn, of the Kitchen Gods, etc.).
Of these the most important is the Têt Nguyen Dan that marks the Lunar New Year.
The spring that comes brings
with it a message of optimism, love, joy, hope and confidence in man and life.
The Viêtnamese have adopted many customs of the Confucian Chinese New Year but
they have indigenized their form and content and added new practices of their
own, drawing from the pre-Chinese folkloric treasury of their Viêt cultural
patrimony. By way of example: Têt folk prints, the banh chung cakes and betel.
New Year folk prints, printed form wood blocks, represent in both countries
wishes for happiness and prosperity as pictured in the minds of farmers (plump
children, longevity, flowers and fruit).
In ViêtNam they depict
pre-Chinese topics which are not at all Confucian: erotic scenes such as
'Jealousy' and 'Coconut picking', or patriotic scenes featuring heroes of the
past struggle against Chinese invaders.
The most popular food eaten at Têt is
undoubtedly the banh chung, a rectangular cake (the shape of the earth in
popular imagination) made of steamed glutinous rice stuffed with fat pork, beans
and shallots. Its origin is linked to a legend dating back to the first
millennium before Christ, the time of Hung kings who were the founders of the
first Viêtnamese state.
The legend of the betel dates back to the same period, the chewing of which
has become less and less popular. But its symbolic significance remains: betel
is a religious offerings made to ancestors at Têt, a family festival. |
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