Editor's note:
Tet Nguyen Dan is always a reunion occasion for many Vietnamese families. There are foreign sons-in-law who have lived in Vietnam for many years and gradually become familiar with Tet. Together with their wife's family, they participate in Tet customs like a true Vietnamese.
VietNamNet introduces a series of articles titled "Westerners Celebrate Tet" that captures cozy images of foreigners celebrating Tet in Vietnam.
Having loved a Da Nang girl for 9 years but officially becoming a son-in-law since the end of 2022, Pim Gilles Felix Pluut has only truly experienced Vietnamese Tet for the past 2 years.
This year, Pim and Quyen returned to Belgium during the Vietnamese Lunar New Year, which was also the first time Quyen celebrated Tet away from home.
“We sent lucky money to Quyen’s family. On this side, we happened to meet Nguyet’s family - a Vietnamese family living in Belgium - while shopping at the supermarket. Quyen suggested that the family wrap banh chung, make fish sauce and celebrate Tet with the couple.
Everyone agreed and of course I was very excited to experience making banh chung for the first time but in my own homeland, not in Vietnam" - Pim said.
"Ms. Nguyet's family has lived in Belgium for decades. Her daughter was born here. This is also the first time she has wrapped the cake herself and she is very skillful at it. Previously, Ms. Nguyet used to wrap the cake but in the following years she only bought it. It has been 40 years since Ms. Nguyet has had fish sauce meat again so she is very happy" - Quyen said.
For Pim, he "didn't expect wrapping banh chung to be so meticulous and complicated".
Pim wrapped banh chung for the first time but in her hometown
"Pim really liked it because it seemed difficult at first, but when I gave him step-by-step instructions and opened a YouTube video showing him how to wrap the cake so he could watch, he was surprised that the cake Pim wrapped himself looked the most beautiful and neatest."
The two families started working at 1pm, eating, talking and cleaning up until 8pm. The process of boiling meat, cooking fish sauce, steaming green beans, marinating meat, washing leaves, wiping leaves and wrapping the cake took about 3 hours. There were many cakes to wrap, but this was also the first time Quyen was "directed" from the stage of buying ingredients to the stage of finishing the cake.
She bought all the ingredients for making banh chung, banh tet and banh u in Belgium but the prices there were high. To buy all the ingredients, she and her husband had to go to two places far apart but the price was still cheaper than buying them in advance (12-15 Euros, equivalent to 300-400 thousand/piece).
Pim and Quyen (left) and Nguyet's family wrap cakes and make fish sauce to remember the taste of Tet in their homeland.
Pim still remembers the first time he celebrated Lunar New Year was in 2023, when he and his wife were living in an apartment just 300 meters from his wife's parents' house.
On the days before Tet, the Belgian son-in-law and his wife went to buy some flower pots to decorate the balcony. His wife, My Quyen, made fish sauce and pickled onions to eat with banh u and banh tet that her mother-in-law wrapped herself. On the 30th of Tet, the whole family went to buy kumquat trees and fresh flowers.
Pim decided to cook 'boulettes sauce lapin' (rabbit meatballs with sauce) for the family. This is the French translation of the dish's name, but there is no rabbit in this dish, Pim said.
“That New Year’s Eve was very happy. My husband and I lit a fire in the middle of the empty lot next to the building to cook with a pile of firewood we had collected. While waiting for me to cook meatballs, Quyen fried banana cakes for the whole neighborhood to eat. Everyone sat together and chatted until 1-2am, setting off fireworks to welcome the New Year.”
Pim sits cooking in an empty lot near her house on Tet 2023
On the morning of the first day of the New Year, the couple was awakened by the sound of neighbors chatting and wishing each other a Happy New Year, and by the bustling sound of New Year music.
Quyen's family is Catholic, so the whole family always goes to church on the morning of the first day of the month. After that, the whole family visits their grandparents and relatives, then everyone returns to Pim's house to eat the food Pim cooked. "Pim is happy because his parents and wife keep praising it as delicious," Quyen said.
Because he has loved Quyen for many years and speaks Vietnamese quite well, Pim is proficient in using complex Vietnamese titles such as aunt, uncle, etc. During Tet, he gets to meet a lot of his wife's relatives, so he needs Quyen to "remind" him a little to remember to call them "correctly".
“Everyone in my family loves our handsome son-in-law who can speak Vietnamese. In almost every occasion that Pim can join the family, he integrates very well. I even let him talk to everyone instead of sitting around translating. He is also humorous, so the whole family likes to chat with him.”
The whole family gathers to eat cake and drink tea on Tet holiday
On the third day of Tet that year, the couple decided to visit a friend's garden house in Dak Lak . When passing through Quang Ngai, the young couple really enjoyed the Tet atmosphere there. "The streets were crowded, the food was still cheap and Quyen said the Tet atmosphere in Quang Ngai was like Da Nang in the past."
Quyen had told Pim many times about the old Tet, about how every year her maternal grandparents' family made all kinds of jams and cakes, about the big barrel used to cook banh chung and banh tet, and sometimes used to watch the fire...
“Quyen said that in the days before Tet, every family was busy cleaning, painting, buying food, drying onions, papaya, carrots, making fish sauce... It sounded very interesting.
In the past, Quyen’s family always repainted the house with new paint to welcome Tet. But now, few people do that anymore. Most families buy cakes or pickled onions from the market for convenience. At the end of the year, families only do general cleaning and do not repaint. My mother-in-law still cooks cakes, but only for the family to eat,” Pim said.
He said, if according to what his wife told him, he felt that Tet now was not as joyful and special as Tet in the past. He himself really wanted to experience the true taste of Tet in the past as in his wife's memory.
When celebrating Tet in Da Nang, there was one thing that Pim did not like very much, which was that the streets were very deserted, most of the shops were closed. The few shops that were open had very expensive prices.
“Because most of Da Nang is made up of people from all over the world, when Tet comes, everyone goes back to their hometowns. The whole city becomes deserted, so it feels sadder,” the Belgian son-in-law shared.
The wife's parents tried the food their son-in-law cooked.
Among the Tet customs, he was also surprised by the custom of stepping on the ground (xong dat). “As far as I know, many people take this very seriously because they believe that their entire upcoming year will be lucky, successful or unlucky depending on who or what animal enters their house first. The homeowner often chooses someone whose age is compatible to enter their house first. It sounds complicated and difficult to understand!”
This year, celebrating Vietnamese New Year in Belgium with his wife, Pim and Quyen visited Ms. Nguyet's family and cooked braised pork for everyone.
"Tet for people far from home is just that simple, but it's enough to remind each other that no matter where we go, we should never forget our homeland and roots" - Quyen confided.
Photo: Character provided
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Source: https://vietnamnet.vn/chang-re-tay-bat-ngo-voi-tuc-xong-dat-ao-uoc-trai-nghiem-tet-xua-2366604.html
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