New Year, Spring Festival, Tet - all these names are the most fun Vietnamese holiday. Branches of a blossoming peach - a symbol of the New Year - should be in every home. Children look forward to midnight when they can start firing small homemade firecrackers.
In Vietnam, the New Year is celebrated according to the lunar calendar, between January 21 and February 19, when early spring comes here.
At the festive table - bouquets of flowers. On New Year's Eve, it is customary to give each other branches of a peach tree with swollen buds.
With the onset of dusk, the Vietnamese make fires in parks, gardens or on the streets, several families gather around the fires.
Special delicacies from rice are prepared on coals. On this night, all quarrels are forgotten, all insults are forgiven. The Vietnamese believe that a god lives in every house, and on New Year's Eve this god goes to heaven to tell how each member of the family spent the past year.
The Vietnamese once believed that God floated on the back of a carp. Nowadays, on New Year's Eve, the Vietnamese sometimes buy live carp, and then release it into a river or pond. They also believe that the first person to enter their home in the New Year will bring good or bad luck in the coming year.
Author: Nguyen Van Ngon
Preschool teacher, United Nations International School, Vietnam
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