Chuc Mung Nam Moi!

The calendar changes in Vietnam on January 1, but the new year doesn’t really come until Tet – the start of the lunar year that usually falls in late January or February. It goes something like this:

Preparation: Ong Tao, the kitchen god, has been privy to each family’s secret business throughout the year, so it is time for him to return to heaven to make a report to the Jade Emperor up there. On the 23rd day of the 12th month, a farewell dinner is held for him, before he rides a big fish up for his weeklong visit to heaven. To aid that trip, families burn paper fish, horses and clothing to be transformed into a spiritual state for Ong Tao to use in his travels. People also release fish into lakes and ponds, which in Hanoi are sold by men with clear plastic bags of live fish hanging from their bicycles. Also, Ong Tao has no pants. Legend tells us that either he is too poor to afford them, or he burned them in the hearth fire or he was in such a rush to get back to heaven that he forgot them. Either way, he makes a fairly unimposing figure to be determining each family’s luck for the next year.

Cultural note – There are actually three kitchen gods, two men and a woman, who represent the three legs of the tripods traditionally used in Vietnamese cooking. Ong Tao is the most famous.

After Ong Tao leaves, families can start cleaning (which is not allowed during Tet) and decorating for the holiday. Huge flower markets open all over town, where people can buy kumquat trees and miniature peach trees with light pink blossoms. Also, the traffic gets so bad that I once couldn’t figure out a way to cross the street even when all the vehicles were stopped.



Giao Thua: In Hanoi, where people are “modern,” the city holds a semi-Western-style New Year’s Eve celebration with fireworks over Hoan Kiem lake. At midnight, though, everyone goes to the pagoda to pray and give offerings to gods and ancestors. The midnight prayer constitutes the Giao Thua ritual (giao meaning to give and thua meaning to receive), symbolizing the passing on of life and the recognition of that gift by the current generation.

First day: This most important day is reserved for visits with the husband’s family. The first visitor to a household in the new year determines the luck for the whole year and must be carefully selected. My friend Matt “ate” Tet with a Vietnamese family, where the matron selected herself to be the first visitor and simply left the house, took a walk around the block and returned to “visit.” Also, money of equal amounts in envelopes is exchanged as Tet gifts, so that everyone eventually ends up with the same amount he or she has gifted to keep poor families from actually losing a lot of money at Tet.

Second day: is for socializing with the wife’s family and close friends and potentially for gambling, if you’ve had a really good first day.

Third day: Visits from other important people like teachers and doctors occur then. The “first visit,” if counted only for non-family members, can also happen on the third day. That was the more traditional practice, but since Vietnamese people have started using the later days of Tet as time to travel, the first visit has moved up in some households. Items for the ancestors, who have returned for the new year, are burned for their departure at this point. Those first three days involve a lot of cooking for women and an intense amount of rice wine drinking for men.

Later: Businesses and shops reopen on the fourth day and life returns to the streets, which empty out during this family-oriented time. On the fifteenth day of Tet – the first full moon – there are ceremonies at temples. Vendors also use the final two weeks to sell the last of their banh chung, an incredibly rich, glutinous rice cake stuffed with meat and mung beans and wrapped in banana leaf – the delicacy of the season.

Happy Year of the Ox!