Tet in Hanoi
Vietnam - Hoi An - Hanoi - Ho Chi Minh City - Hue
Features of Tet in Hanoi
- Tet is the Vietnamese and Chinese Lunar New Year and the most important festival of Vietnamese people.
- This scared festival takes place between late January and early February depending on the Lunar Calendar.
- Although officially a three-day affair, festivities may continue for a week or more with indulgence into eating, drinking, merry making and enjoyable social activities.
- It is also a time for family reunions and for paying respect to ancestors and the elders.
- Gifts of food are sent to friends, neighbors and relatives in the days before Tet.
- It is the time for the household genies to meet, those who have helped during the year, namely the Craft Creator, the Land Genie and the Kitchen God.
- The deceased ancestors are invited for a family reunion with their descendants to join the family's Tet celebrations.
- Family members make it a point to meet, no matter where they are or whatever the circumstances are. They come back to meet their loved ones and gather for a dinner of traditional foods.
- The traditional foods include bánh chung or a square cake made of sticky rice stuffed with beans and pork, mang or a soup of boiled bamboo shoots and flied pork and xôi g?c which is orange sticky rice.
- The dinner is followed by a visit to the local pagodas.
- People are seen in their best attires, decorating their homes and stocking up on traditional Tet delicacies.
- The shops hang festive red banners which read 'Chuc Mung Nam Moi' meaning Happy New Year and festoons adorn the city streets.
- All decked up with colored lights, stalls are set up all over the city to sell mut or candied fruits and jams, traditional cakes, and fresh fruit and flowers.
- Markets sell cone-shaped kumquat bushes, flowering peach trees which is considered as symbols of life and good fortune which people bring into their homes to celebrate the advent of spring.
- The 'Mam Ngu Qua' or the 'five-fruit tray' on the ancestral altar during the Tet Holidays stands for the admiration and gratitude of the Vietnamese to Heaven and Earth and their ancestors expressing their aspiration for a life of plenty.
- The Giao Thua is the most sacred point of time, the passage from the old to the new year.
- It is popularly believed that in Heaven there are twelve Highnesses controlling the affairs on earth, each of them taking charge of one year.
- The Giao Thua is the moment of bidding adieu to the old year upon the conclusion of his term and ushering in the new year.
- During this time, every home makes offerings in the open air to pray for a prosperous new year.
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