Lunar New Year goods, state-owned trade, a check-in spot from our grandparents' era.

In recent days, the traditional Tet festival and gift market, held for the first time in Hoa Lu Ancient Town, has attracted thousands of tourists and locals alike to experience shopping and taking photos. The lasting impression on visitors is perhaps the lingering memory of the "ration coupon" era, reflected in the collected items such as lunchboxes, cassette players, Thong Nhat bicycles, and the sound of loudspeakers proclaiming "This is the Voice of Vietnam...".

With over 80 stalls displaying and selling food , drinks, Tet flowers, handicrafts, decorations, gifts, souvenirs, and OCOP products from Ninh Binh province, the Traditional Tet Festival and Gift Market offered visitors many meaningful experiences such as: making banh chung (traditional rice cakes), playing folk games, attending talk shows with vendors, and taking photos in a vibrant, colorful space imbued with the spirit of Tet.

Lunar New Year goods trade - Check-in spots from our grandparents' era — Traditional Tet gift baskets were sold at the Tet market in the old days.

Perhaps the most captivating and impressive of the stalls at the Traditional Tet Festival is the "BAV Trade Store." Here, young people from the 90s and 2000s generations at BAV Media Company meticulously collected and decorated a space for selling Tet goods and a check-in area that strongly evokes the atmosphere of the subsidy period. Vu Minh Trang, Head of Marketing at BAV Media Company, shared: "This is the first time we've had the idea of displaying a space depicting the Tet of the past. Our biggest wish is to give young people from the 90s and 2000s generations an experience of their fathers' and grandfathers' lives during the subsidy period, not only through items like the black and white television, the tea cabinet set, the peacock-patterned blanket, the bicycle frame... but also to give them a practical experience such as buying goods with ration coupons and the Tet goods of the 70s and 80s of the last century." As for the older women, they can immerse themselves in the atmosphere of Tet of yesteryear through the sounds and images of the subsidy era...

Nguyen Hai Nam, an 11th-grade student in Ninh Binh city, said that visiting the "General Store" allowed him to witness firsthand the meaningful activities of the traditional Tet holiday from his grandparents' time. He saw items he had only heard about but never seen before. Furthermore, queuing up and buying goods using ration coupons was also a very interesting experience.

Traditional markets are like films rewinding to the past, preserving a part of the rural soul, childhood memories, and holding many deep-seated emotions in each person's heart. They are also vibrant spaces reflecting the lives of families, communities, and people in a bygone era. Ms. Hoang Thi Nham from Ninh Xuan commune, Hoa Lu district, shared: "Coming to the old town today, I feel like I've stepped into the Tet atmosphere of the 1970s. Although most of the stalls here are run by young people, they have put a lot of thought into arranging and researching items and decorating the space, giving visitors a chance to reminisce about the past."

In particular, while strolling through the market, I was captivated by the loudspeaker announcement, "This is the Voice of Vietnam, broadcasting from Hanoi ..." This is a familiar sound to our generation, those born in the 1960s. Back then, there were no telephones or color televisions like there are now, so just hearing "This is the Voice of Vietnam" was enough for us to know the time; we didn't need to look at a clock. At the "state-run store," the images of ration coupons, lunchboxes, tables and chairs, peacock-patterned blankets... brought back memories of a time of poverty. My family and I took photos there as keepsakes.

Visiting the traditional Tet (Lunar New Year) atmosphere in Hoa Lu Ancient Town, Ms. Le Thi Thanh from Ninh Binh City shared: "When we were children, we all eagerly awaited Tet so we could go to the market with our mothers and grandmothers. For us children born in the 80s and 90s, the gifts and items from the Tet market in our hometowns were very ordinary, yet not commonplace. Because their flavor was the flavor of childhood, of memories of our homeland. The Tet market in our hometowns became a deeply cherished memory every time Tet came around. Especially for children from rural areas, the Tet market was a world of colors, a dreamlike space with so many interesting things that seemed close yet far away. Hopefully, activities like the Traditional Tet Festival will be organized annually so that generations of Vietnamese people will always remember the flavor of traditional Tet." For our generation, it wasn't just an opportunity to experience and reminisce about the traditional Tet holiday, but also the love of our mothers and the hardships of our fathers selling sacks of rice and pigs to buy their children new sandals and clothes.

The Traditional Tet Festival and Gift Market program will take place from January 19th to February 14th, 2024 (the 5th day of the Lunar New Year of the Year of the Dragon). This event marks the beginning of a series of events commemorating the 10th anniversary of the Trang An Scenic Landscape Complex being recognized by UNESCO as a World Cultural and Natural Heritage Site.

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