Tet has long been the most important event of the year for Vietnamese people. After a busy year in the city, Tet gives people a reason to return home. Therefore, few people return home empty-handed for Tet. Some bring achievements, some bring wealth home... But in the end, they still try to bring back pride, happiness, or more broadly, joy.
Few people return home empty-handed for Tet. Some bring achievements, some bring wealth home.
There are thousands of ways to express the joy of Tet, such as using eye-catching colors such as red, yellow, orange on each decoration; or playing with yellow apricot blossoms, playing with bright peach blossoms. The typical color block of Spring is born to stimulate the brain to produce interest and excitement, so Spring comes after winter like a little elixir to awaken vitality after a series of gloomy days.
Because it is said that Spring is the ultimate good thing, that no matter how hard or how well people have been in a year, they will still be favored by heaven and earth to enjoy spring many more times. Has anyone ever wondered why spring is the first season? Perhaps heaven and earth want us to start everything with joy, faith and overflowing aspirations. And we, mortals, mold those favors into the shape of cultural identity, and from there, Tet was born to materialize the gift of "joy" from creation.
People often joke with each other with the phrase "tearing up the draft" every time the year ends and the New Year comes, because people know that Spring is tolerant, so it gives us another chance to make up for lost time in the next 365 days.
After the 23rd of December, no matter how busy we are, we still try to separate our favors from our work, to partly observe and pay attention to the changes in the market on the eve of Tet. "Hungry on the anniversary of our father's death/Full on the three days of Tet", no matter how debauched we are during the year, the Tet offering tray must be full so that the ancestors will not feel sad, also so that our descendants can rest assured that the afterlife is completely taken care of.
My father once told me that in the time when we still tried to eat well and wear warm clothes; the subsidized Tet was the days when fireworks exploded overhead, but we still tried to pedal our Thong Nhat bicycle as hard as we could from the factory on the muddy, drizzly rice field road, in order to bring home a peach blossom branch for our wife and children. In those days, Tet, or joy, only appeared when the whole family was present.
Wrapping Chung cake for Tet
Nowadays, the time of having enough to eat and wear is over, people are gradually moving towards eating well and dressing well, when technology and machines help people have more free time. Tet is the same now, it is no longer something that makes people too busy, so they have more time to take care of and find joy. In the past, Tet was on the night of the 30th so they could get home from work, but nowadays Tet comes earlier and earlier, we don't have to wait until the first peach blossom is brought home, or the spring rains remind us, we are now given a period of time to be excited about Tet starting from the 23rd of December, when the work of "Tet shopping" begins to be carried out.
In the past, when people were busy finishing today's meal and worrying about tomorrow's meal, people had to calculate a month in advance what they needed and what they should buy due to limited supplies, from a piece of pork head, a piece of pork fat, a rooster... Now, even spring rolls and ham rolls are processed by places competing in quality and flavor to please all diners. People now only have to worry about "big money" items such as renovating their homes, buying new amenities, especially home entertainment. That's it, no longer worrying about the basics, people gradually worry about how to fully enjoy the "joy" of Tet.
The colors of spring
The habit of shopping now is not only to make the altar more prosperous, but also to show off the “prosperity” of each house. The house is bright with peach blossoms inside and apricot blossoms outside, and is also praised by passersby as “five or ten times better than last year”. It is pleasing to the ears and the heart, and also conveys a little hope for a new year of continued prosperity and development. So, Tet, no matter the time, is always a joy, a preparation for joy and also a wish for joy.
Vietnamese people put their wishes into every shape of Tet:
Fatty meat, pickled onions, red parallel sentences
"The flagpole, the firecrackers, the green square cakes"
The most familiar folk song and proverb about the custom of preparing and decorating for Tet has shown the intertwining of offerings in Gia Tien, at the same time each item tells us its specific purpose. People offer their ancestors the products that heaven and earth bestow, the heavens return to earth, and then bring the most splendid achievements of a year of effort to respectfully bow, blending in the billowing incense to push sincere prayers for a new year with many new victories.
The habit of shopping now is not only to make the altar more prosperous, but also to show off the "prosperity" of each family.
The Five Elements on the fruit tray with the green color of bananas (wood), the yellow color of grapefruit or Buddha's hand (earth), the red color of chili or the red mixed with orange of tangerines, kumquats (fire)... or homophonous elements such as in the South with custard apple, fig, coconut, papaya, mango symbolize "praying for enough to live on". On the altar, there are always the three-piece set, the five-piece set, candles... cleaned, the families of the lineage open the red silk or curtain to cover the ancestral tablets, the incense bowl can be "bao sai" (using scented water to clean around the incense bowl, removing the incense sticks), ready for the arrangement to worship ancestors at the beginning of the year.
On both sides of the altar, long sugarcanes are sometimes placed to symbolize ladders for ancestors to descend to earth to celebrate Tet. Although cultural customs change flexibly according to the times and regions, they still cannot escape the original wishes of a Tet reunion, with all generations, children and grandchildren chatting, grandparents being healthy, family being prosperous and well-being, or in short, living a peaceful life.
“There are 365 days a year to choose between happiness and sadness, so never choose sadness on Tet”, my mother said when she opened her heart about a long year on a late afternoon. Tet is not allowed to be poor. Because of the way of life, Tet is like a milestone for people to know that day is near so that they can consciously clean up all the hustle and bustle, the fragrant water of leaves washes away all worries, makes the heart relaxed and clean, and continues to give themselves the right to wait for good things next year.
People often joke with each other with the phrase “tearing up drafts” every time the year ends and Tet comes, because people know that Spring is tolerant, so it gives us another chance to make up for the next 365 days. So everyone, why not leave your worries behind, why not join in the joy of heaven and earth, because as long as there is Tet, there is still hope…
Why not join in the joy with the joy of heaven and earth, because as long as there is Tet, there is hope...
