Vietnamese Tet attracts people from far away

For citizens of countries and territories living and working in Vietnam, Tet is the perfect opportunity for them to enjoy, observe, contemplate, and immerse themselves in the interesting space, time, identity, culture, customs, and practices, to understand and love this land more.

Nostalgic Tet

Explaining the reason for her attachment to Vietnamese Tet since coming to Vietnam in 2016, Ms. Sophia - wife of the Chief Representative of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Vietnam, said: "We have worked for a long time in several countries in Europe, Africa, America... but when celebrating the first Tet in Vietnam, I was really moved because Vietnamese Tet brought me back to the past from more than 50 years ago. At that time, I was young, the conditions where I lived were still lacking, as a girl, everyone loved to be beautiful, but only during Tet did our parents let us go shopping and tailoring clothes for Tet. Therefore, the most sublime emotions of my childhood only came during Tet. Children got new clothes, delicious food, and ran around the neighborhood to see each other's clothes. When I got home, I took the opportunity to help my parents clean and decorate the house, buy flowers to display in the house, arrange spring couplets, help my mother prepare the New Year's Eve offering tray... all those busy but familiar activities of Tet, I have long forgotten because The nature of my job requires me to travel to countries that use the Western calendar. When I see Vietnamese Tet, I find my childhood again, with the same excitement as in the old days."

British Ambassador to Vietnam Iain Frew experiences making banh chung for Tet

I love Vietnamese Tet. The sacred emotions at the New Year's Eve feast, or the quiet atmosphere at temples and village communal houses on Tet, touch the deepest emotions, reminding of family ties. Vietnamese Tet to me is a quiet moment for nostalgia, and I only have those priceless moments of experience when Tet comes.

David Cannes

When asked about her impressions of Vietnamese Tet, Ms. Sophia added: "There were years when I celebrated Tet in Hoi An, and there were years when I celebrated Tet in Cao Bang. Tet in Hoi An made me feel lonely, because everywhere was closed for Tet. Tet in Cao Bang was just for enjoying the scenery and famous places. Tet in Hanoi made me the most ecstatic. I live near Nhat Tan peach village, when peach blossoms are in full bloom, my favorite thing is to go to the flower market to choose peach blossoms to display in the house. When I was young, every year I followed my mother to the market to buy flowers for Tet, now at the age of nearly 70, my mother is no longer here, I go alone or with my husband to choose Tet flowers, my heart is happy and also filled with nostalgia for my mother".

A son-in-law in Nom village (Dai Dong, Hung Yen ) dressed up in a traditional dress to go to the village temple to offer sacrifices to the saint.

Experiencing each stage of celebrating Tet, from the happy Tet of childhood with new clothes, to a time of Tet of staying home when television developed, Tet programs flooded the airwaves, people only liked to watch TV. Then came a more developed stage of inviting each other to… escape Tet, travel far away after Tet and then return home, many old Tet customs and practices no longer exist. Enjoying the Vietnamese New Year to find nostalgia, Ms. Sophia also finds her own Tet corners: "The market I go to all year round is Chau Long, I am close to the saleswomen so when there is delicious food, they often reserve a portion. Also following the old customs of my hometown, I value the New Year's Eve tray, choosing really delicious and good ingredients to make dishes. I know that Hanoians prepare Tet trays with many elaborate dishes, especially water dishes. I learn from the way Hanoians arrange dishes on plates, my favorite are the types of ham, from pork ham, beef ham, cinnamon sausage..., each with a different flavor and preparation method. Tet in Hanoi is like that every year, always bringing me warmth and happiness, being far away but feeling like being at home".

New Year's Eve

Tet is also a season of play. For a French resident who has lived in Ho Chi Minh City for 4 years and Hanoi for 4 years like Armelle Warnery, Tet holiday is an opportunity for her to freely explore new lands on the map of Vietnam. Armelle explains the reason for her love of enjoying a "traveling" spring: "I have 4 young children, the first of whom is a girl from an ethnic minority. During my time in Vietnam, in addition to my main job, when I have time off for Tet, I often travel everywhere by motorbike. Because I want to understand Vietnam as much as possible, and gain knowledge and experience from my trips to share with my children, especially the child I adopted from Vietnam."

From Quoc An on the scenic terraced fields in Hoang Su Phi, Ha Giang

In the foreign diplomatic community in Vietnam, Armelle is a very well-traveled person, and throughout those journeys, the most valuable things she keeps are stories, images, and new discoveries about Vietnam in the eyes of foreigners. Tet is the perfect opportunity to nurture Armelle's passion for exploring Vietnam in a very "dynamic" way, which is to pack a backpack and hit the road. She added the reason: "Tet season is always a beautiful season, from clouds and mountains, nature, people, especially the communities in the northern mountainous regions. Vietnam still has many wonderful things, for example, on the mountain trip during Tet 2023, I was able to approach a strange purple bud tea variety on the top of Chieu Lau Thi mountain, Ha Giang. Strangely, it was cold in winter, but the tea tree still sprouted, purple buds, hidden in the primeval forest, the journey to the beautiful and magical tea tree was like stepping into a fairy tale. It was the most impressive and profound trip I have ever experienced".

On Tet holiday, the altar is a space that is carefully cared for and decorated in every Vietnamese family.

A citizen from Taiwan, Tu Quoc An, 68 years old, has been attached to and working in Vietnam for more than 20 years, is also an experienced old tea maker in Hoang Su Phi, often chooses for himself different Tet corners: "My wife is from Thai Nguyen, if we celebrate Tet in her hometown, it is a traditional Tet like every Vietnamese family. But every year I celebrate Tet in the old tea area, living with the people, it is very different. Celebrating Tet in the high, wild, vast mountains, or under the roots of 500 - 700 year old old tea trees, gives me a feeling of the smallness and impermanence of human life, and at the same time, I see the magical beauty of nature, from clouds, mountains, wind, water sources, from rare primeval tea trees that are hard to find on the world tea map. The Tet holidays with the Tay, Nung, Co Lao people... who are all workers at the tea factory I opened, help me understand and appreciate more about the people here. Mountains and rivers, water and mountains are connected to the fields "I am just a guest. Seeing their lives are still difficult and hard, while the tea trees are abundant and flourishing, I only hope to contribute a little bit of my efforts through research, creating new tea products and supporting them, so that Vietnamese tea and Vietnamese people can be more proud of their homeland's products."

Tet flavor

Holding a stack of votive paper waiting to burn at Va Temple, in Xu Doai (Son Tay, Hanoi), David Cannes - a French citizen, confided that he was very much a follower of local customs: "My wife has finished praying, so I will burn this for our ancestors to use." David said that although he only followed his wife's instructions and did not understand much about folk beliefs, when he held each stack of votive paper money to burn, looking at the flickering flames, he naturally recalled the past with his parents, family members, and even his deceased relatives. So many familiar memories came flooding back, clearly. "I love Vietnamese Tet. The sacred emotions at the New Year's Eve feast, or the quiet space in temples and communal houses on Tet, touch the depths of emotions, reminding me of family love. Vietnamese Tet to me is a quiet moment for nostalgia, and I can only have those priceless moments of experience when Tet comes," David shared more.

Boiled chicken with fairy wings, a familiar image in Tet dishes

Enjoying Tet is also an opportunity to have unforgettable experiences, especially learning how to make some "symbols" of Vietnamese Tet. The story of British Ambassador Iain Frew in his first year of his tenure in Vietnam with the experience of wrapping Chung cake is an example. The space where the Ambassador experienced was a five-room wooden house with a tiled roof and a large front yard fully equipped with ingredients for wrapping the cake. The operations from mixing beans, marinating meat, cutting leaves, arranging bamboo strips... looked simple, but when it came to wrapping the cake, while stripping dong leaves with... his teeth according to the instructions, Ambassador Iain Frew smiled and said: "The operations look simple but it's not easy at all". In the art of wrapping Chung cake, wrapping the cake is already difficult, but it also has to be wrapped beautifully, tightly, evenly... which requires experience to be able to do.

Vietnamese Tet, if we delve into the culinary flavors, banh chung plays the role of a prelude. Each region is a treasure trove of unique cuisine, bringing extreme surprises to friends from far away. Freelance filmmaker Erik Pauser from Sweden, while celebrating Vietnamese Tet in Ho Chi Minh City, still remembers the "xa ban" dish of the Southern people. Erik described: "The "xa ban" dish is only available during Tet, I was invited to eat it and heard the explanation of its deliciousness, like 100 birds gathering on a tree branch. I cannot fully describe its flavor, it has a bit of fat, richness, sweetness, and also salty, it is super suitable to eat with rice or boiled vegetables". When asked, we learned that the "xa ban" dish is also called "a hundred birds returning to the nest", when families eat Tet and have leftover food, they put it all in one pot, and cook it gradually during Tet. In it, all kinds of human flavors converge, the longer it is kept, the more rotten, soft, fragrant, and rich it becomes... When you are tired of alcohol and meat, xa ban is a super effective dish to relieve the feeling of fullness.

Moving north, mentioning Tet dishes immediately evokes the sophistication, meticulousness, and elaboration in crafting every small detail. Valerie Guilaud - a Belgian citizen, remembers the first Tet in Vietnam in 2024 through the aroma of grapefruit. Valerie said: "My friend's family in Hanoi bought a sack of bright yellow grapefruit, but it was not fragrant. My friend's mother took out a can of wine, used a towel to carefully wipe each fruit, placed it on a tray on the altar, the grapefruit spread its fragrance throughout the house, the skin was plump, completely different from the beginning. Later I learned that this was a trick to keep the grapefruit fragrant and display it longer, it was really interesting".

Armelle on an "exploration" of the pristine purple tea bud region on the top of Chieu Lau Thi

The traditional Hanoi Tet feast is associated with specific rules, expressed externally through shape, meaning, taste, color, and aroma. For example, a set of four bowls of water (symbolizing the four seasons) with ball drop soup, stewed pigeon, tangled squid, bamboo shoot soup with pig's feet or mushroom and spring roll stewed with lotus seeds. Valerie added: "I love the ball soup, it's very beautiful and very tropical because of the colors. I asked my friend how to make it, and after hearing the story, I... gave up the idea of ​​trying it. Just the preparation of the peel (ingredients include carrots, kohlrabi, white and green cauliflower, peas, shiitake mushrooms...), all must be carefully trimmed, the more beautifully trimmed, the more it shows the skill and coolness of the housewife. Then there's the way to boil chicken, boil shrimp, mix in the broth for the soup, the water is really clear but still delicious, sweet, and attractive... I understand that each delicious dish in this country contains industriousness and family love. The delicious dishes in the Tet feast are the happiness and pride of not only the cook, but also of the whole family. This is the experience I see most clearly when enjoying Vietnamese Tet in Hanoi".

Vietnamese Tet through the experiences of international friends, although different in culture, customs, and practices, but become in harmony thanks to the common points through emotions about the smell and taste of Tet, about space and time, and then become very close in consciousness. Vietnamese Tet is still a connection, a sharing, a discovery, a reminiscence... and in any aspect, it is full of simple, sacred, peaceful and happy emotions.

Source: https://thanhnien.vn/tet-viet-quyen-ru-nguoi-phuong-xa-185250102212618009.htm