Lunar New Year
By Thao Le, MSN, APRN, PMHNP-BC, Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner
The holidays may be over, but in Vietnam, one of the biggest holidays (and my absolute favorite), Lunar New Year or Vietnamese New Year (Tết Nguyên Đán), will be celebrated on Wednesday, January 29. I said “on” but customs and activities begin several days before and last days after this traditional holiday.
“Tết” is short for “Tết Nguyên Đán” or “Tết Âm Lịch” – Vietnamese Lunar New Year. The word “Nguyên” means the beginning and “Đán” means the dawn. Tết marks the end of the year, and the beginning of a new one. It also means the start of the spring season in Vietnam. It’s almost like New Years!
In the days ahead of the holiday, it’s custom to clean the house. Symbolically, we remove the “bad things” and leave them behind with the old year. We then decorate the home to bring good luck in the new year. My parents like to decorate their home with flowers, a brand-new tear-off wall calendar, and red envelopes they hang from their house plants.
Traditionally, my parents will cook a feast that includes egg rolls, rice porridge, sticky rice, meat platter, salad and fried rice. Before we dig in, we light incense sticks and pray to our ancestors. We place the food-filled plates on the mantle, where pictures of my deceased grandparents are displayed. This invites them to celebrate the holiday with us and pray for luck in the upcoming year. Once the incense sticks burn out, we eat!
One of the traditional dishes of Tết is New Year’s cake, or bánh tét, which is made from glutinous rice filled with mung bean and pork. It is wrapped in banana leaf, then boiled. Once it is cooked, the banana leaf is removed and the bánh is sliced into wheels. My parents and I prefer to fry the cakes after they’re sliced to give them a crunchy texture!
During the holiday, it’s custom to gift children and younger adults red envelopes filled with money. The red color symbolizes good luck and prosperity and typically contains 2-dollar bills. These bills should be crisp and clean. Red envelopes can be gifted to adults too, not just children. I have three sisters (two older, and one younger), and usually my oldest sister gifts the rest of us money, and I gift my younger sister money. It’s a good thing I only have one younger sibling!
Another traditional new year activity is a gambling game called bầu cua tôm cá which translates to gourd, crab, shrimp, fish. It’s played with three dice, and each player wagers on what image the dices will land on. Often times the money received from red envelopes are used to wager!
With every Lunar New Year brings the next animal on the zodiac. There are a total of 12 zodiac signs, and each person’s birth year correlates with an animal and its associated personality traits. 2025 will be the year of the snake!
I hope this upcoming year brings all of you peace and prosperity.
Happy New Year, or Chúc Mừng Năm Mới!
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