Lunar New Year

The Vietnamese lunar New Year festival, Tet Nguyen Dan, is the most significant holiday taking place within the first three days of the New Year. The nearer New Year comes the more excited and enthusiastic people are. In general, preparation for Tet starts one week before New Year's Day. There are three main activities in this week: shopping, cleaning and decorating houses, and "Tat Nien" parties.

Shopping is the most interesting activity before Tet. There is a number of items must be bought. In the first place, two items required for enjoyment of Tet are peach flower branches (or yellow Hoa mai blossoms) and kumquat tree. People usually go to flower market and select trees and flowers carefully. In addition, people buy a lot of candies, cakes, roasted watermelon seeds and sweetened coconut. They cannot lack in Tet table to offer guests to eat. Moreover, according to the Asian conception, everyone needs to have some things new to welcome New Year. Therefore, shoppers go to the market, searching for new clothes to wear for the holiday. Children got haircuts and new shoes. People are satisfied and happy with the things they just buy.

People also want their house is clean and beautiful in these days. All of members in family clean and decorate house together. Someone clean the floors, windows or rearrange the furniture. Others decorate the peach branch and kumquat tree with colored lights and small balls. Some families also paint their homes to give it a new look. The oldest member decorates the altar with fruits, chung cakes and flowers. He also hangs cau doi couplet next to two sites of the altar.

Finally, people usually organize Tat Nien parties before Tet. Tat Nien is the celebration of the last session of a period. Each person can have many parties of all kinds like that for about one week before Tet days: one party with his company, another with his friends, with his partners... Home Tat Nien usually takes place at the