Chuc Mung Nam Moi!! We're only four days into the Gregorian calendar, and soon it will be time to celebrate Vietnamese New Year! 2009 is Tet Ky Suu (the Year of the Ox; the Year of Ji Chou). It is the second year in a brand new 12-year cycle. New year's eve (dem giao thua) falls on 25th January, and the new year (tan nien) begins on 26th January.
A word on Tet from Vietname-Culture.com (a word to the wise, read this website, um, discerningly): "Tet" is a word of Chinese Origin. It is the phonetic deformation of "Tiet", a Sino Vietnamese term which means "Joint of a bamboo stern" and in a wider sense, the "beginning of a period of the year". The passage from one period to the next may cause a meteorological disturbance (heat, rain, mist) that must be exercised by ritual sacrifices and festivities. Thus, there are many Tets throughout the year (Mid-autumn Vietnamese New Year, Cold Food Vietnamese New Year, etc.). The most significant of all is "Vietnamese New Year Ca" ("Big Vietnamese New Year" or simply "Vietnamese New Year"), which marks the Lunar New Year. Vietnamese New Year occurs somewhere in the last ten days of January or the first twenty days of February, nearly halfway between winter solstice and spring equinox.
And a word of schmultz, just because it's all about starting anew:
"The lunar year festival, or Tet Nguyen Dan, is the largest festival to take place every year in Vietnam. It starts on the first day of the lunar year and lasts for entire week.
Tet is, according to Vietnamese traditional customs, a family-oriented celebration. The most sacred moment is at midnight on Tet Eve, when it is time to bid farewell to the past year and to welcome the New Year. It is also the occasion for people in every house hold to light incense in remembrance of their late relatives, pluck the plant buds, invite the first New Year’s visitor, and toast to each other.
The lunar year festival is the occasion for family members to meet each other. Tet is also the time when every house hold cooks traditional dishes, such a rice cake, a cake made from of sticky rice filled with bean paste and pork meat. The Lunar New Year festival is the most sacred celebration in Vietnam during which people wish each other health and happiness."
There are many differences between the new year of the Gregorian calendar and the new year of the lunar calendar. One tradition that I find quite fascinating (and, frankly, too frustrating since it reveals too much of my failures) is the making of resolutions. In the Viet culture, we don't busy ourselves with lists of things we resolve to accomplish in the new year. More often than not, it's about forgetting the "debts" of tat nien because letting go of the old is better than bringing it into the brand new year (tan nien) -- it's along the same lines of sweeping out of your house the dust and dirt before the first of the year. Everything that is undesirable is swept away, forgotten, to make room for the new. This is about new health, rejuvenation, re-synergizing. For me, that sounds a lot more interesting, challenging, and mentally healthy -- more so than making lists. Well, at least, just for me. I'm not often successful at fulfilling my resolutions; most of the time, after January ends, I've forgotten the list that I dutifully jotted down. When I was much younger, most of my resolutions were insignificant (eat less chocolate, write more). At this age, I'm a bit less romantic, and facing our world condition, my more realistic resolutions are much tougher than I'd like them to be (help end world poverty, for instance).
Let us hope that the new year will bring us greater challenges as well as the strength and courage to meet them head on.
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