The 2025 Doan Ngo Festival takes place on the 5th day of the 5th lunar month every year, this year it falls on the 31st day of the 5th lunar month. Folklore also calls this day the half-year festival, the insect extermination festival. For Vietnamese people in the past, the Doan Ngo Festival on the 5th day of the 5th lunar month was just as important as the Lunar New Year.
Doan Ngo Festival 2025 takes place on the 5th day of the 5th lunar month every year, this year it falls on the 31st day of the 5th lunar month.
ILLUSTRATION: CAO AN BIEN
If we consider purely according to the lunar calendar, many people will ask the question: Why does Tet not fall exactly in the middle of the year?
Accordingly, a normal lunar year consists of 12 months, or 13 months if there is an extra leap month. The year At Ty 2025 is a leap year with 13 months because there is an extra leap month 6. Normally, half of the year will fall at the end of the 6th lunar month or the beginning of the 7th lunar month.
Meanwhile, the Duanwu Festival falls on the 5th day of the 5th lunar month, which is still in the first half of the year according to numerology. How can this be explained from a calendar perspective?
For Vietnamese people in the past, the Doan Ngo festival on the 5th day of the 5th lunar month was just as important as the Lunar New Year.
PHOTO: DINH THANH (XI THANH)
Interesting facts about the Duanwu Festival and the lunar calendar
Sharing with Thanh Nien , Mr. Pham Vu Loc, a researcher at the Vietnam Space Center, Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology, said that the Doan Ngo festival, which takes place on the 5th day of the 5th lunar month, is often considered the middle of the year according to ancient beliefs.
From this perspective, Mr. Loc analyzed that the solar year always follows the weather cycle and has an average length of 365 days and 6 hours, the lunar year has an undetermined length because each month is 29 or 30 days long, each year has 12 or 13 months, not predetermined. Therefore, there cannot be a concept of "mid-year" meaning a day equidistant from the first day of the Lunar New Year.
Mr. Pham Vu Loc, researcher at Vietnam Space Center, Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology
"The year is a cyclical cycle, so the idea of a starting point of the year (and with it a middle point) is completely conventional across cultures and often originates from the weather cycle," Loc analyzed.
Accordingly, the winter solstice, when the midday sun is at its lowest point in the year and begins to rise in the following days, the weather gradually warms up, and all things begin to grow, is chosen by many calendar systems as the beginning of a new year. Correspondingly, the summer solstice will be the middle of the year, when the midday sun is at its highest point and the weather is hottest.
The summer solstice is the time in the middle of the year when the midday sun is highest and the weather is hottest.
PHOTO: DINH THANH (XI THANH)
According to the original convention, the lunar month that occurs when the sun passes through the Winter Solstice point on the Zodiac is the first month, called the month of Ty (corresponding to the first lunar month), and the month of Ngo must always contain the Summer Solstice.
Later, people chose the Tiger month as the third month from the Rat month as the first month of the year, called January. And the Horse month will be the 5th lunar month. For example, this lunar month starts on May 27, which is the 1st day. Until June 25, it is the 1st day of the following month. The Summer Solstice this year occurs at 9:42 am on June 21 ( Hanoi time), which is the 26th day of the lunar month, so this month is the Horse month and the 5th month of the year At Ty.
If in the solar calendar, the Summer Solstice is an almost fixed day, only fluctuating between 3 days: June 20, 21 or 22, in the lunar calendar, it can be any day in the 5th lunar month depending on the year. For example, the Summer Solstice in the 5th lunar month last year was the 16th, this year it is the 26th, next year it is the 7th...
Banh ú nước tro, com ruou, fruit... are familiar dishes during the Doan Ngo festival.
PHOTO: CAO AN BIEN
In ancient times, people did not use the solar calendar but only the lunar calendar, so on the Summer Solstice each year, they had to look at the calendar to know which day of the 5th month it was. "This was also inconvenient because the calendar was exclusively issued by the royal court, not everyone could easily and quickly look it up. Therefore, people agreed to take the 5th of May as the approximate date for the Summer Solstice," Mr. Loc shared.
He further analyzed that according to Eastern philosophy, odd numbers are positive and are highly valued, so dates with two odd numbers in the same month are often important holidays: the 3rd and 3rd is the Cold Food Festival, the 5th and 5th is the Duanwu Festival, the 7th and 7th is the Qixi Festival, and the 9th and 9th is the Chongyang Festival. The Duanwu Festival is also the time when the positive energy is at its peak in the year, so it is also called the Duanyang Festival, with the word Duan meaning "heading".
Source: https://thanhnien.vn/tet-doan-ngo-co-that-la-tet-giua-nam-ly-giai-tu-lich-phap-co-truyen-185250528075352992.htm
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