Lunar New Year Festival – Traditional festival of Vietnamese people

Lunar New Year Festival (Tet Nguyen Dan or Tet) is the biggest, most long-standing and popular traditional festival of Vietnamese people. Tet falls from the eve of the last lunar month to the 3rd day of the first lunar month. This is also the time when winter ends and spring, the season of birth of all living things, comes.

According to folk belief, Vietnamese farmers also consider Tet as an opportunity to remember the agricultural gods such as Land, Rain, Thunder, Water, etc. At the same time, Tet is also an occasion for families, relatives, friends to gather, visit, wish each other and pay respect to ancestors and grandparents.

Depending on the regions or the religious concepts of the Vietnamese, customs of Tet in often have some differences. But in general, the traditional customs of Tet are divided into three periods, including Year End, New Year’s Eve and New Year. Each period has different preparations, rituals and expressions with typically activities such as Kitchen Gods Day on the 23rd day of the last lunar month, New Year’s Eve worship, visiting relatives, friends on the first days of the Lunar New Year to give greetings and lucky money envelops, etc.

Lunar New Year Festival is the cultural event which preserves traditional values and also adapts modern life. The fine and humanity-value customs of Tet need conserving and promoting so that Lunar New Year Festival is always a special cultural feature of Vietnamese people.

*Thu Giang