Most of the world starts a new year on 1 January. Vietnam celebrates that one too, but the really big new year is Tết Nguyên Đán (the Lunar New Year) — usually in late January or February, when the moon decides.
It's a celebration of spring, family, and starting fresh. People say Tết for short. The whole country basically stops working for a week. Saigon goes quiet because everyone goes home to their parents and grandparents.
A week before Tết, families say goodbye to the Kitchen Gods — ông Công ông Táo. The story says they ride a carp fish up to heaven to tell the Jade Emperor what each family has been up to all year.
So families buy a real golden carp, take it to the river, and let it go free — that's the fish that carries the gods up to the sky. Then everyone scrubs the house clean from top to bottom, because you don't want the gods to see a mess (and you don't want to start the new year with last year's dust).
The most special food of Tết is bánh chưng — a square cake of sticky rice, mung bean and pork, wrapped in dong leaves and boiled for twelve whole hours. The square shape stands for the Earth. In the south, people make bánh tét instead — same idea, just rolled into a long cylinder.
Tables also have candied fruit (mứt), pickled scallions, sticky rice, watermelon (red inside = good luck), and a five-fruit tray that asks for "enough — please send a little more — abundance" in fruit-form.
The very best part if you're a kid: lì xì — red envelopes with money. Older relatives give them to younger ones along with wishes for a good year. The red envelope itself means luck.
Houses are decorated with branches of hoa đào (pink peach blossom) in the north or hoa mai (yellow apricot) in the south. Streets fill with lion dances (múa lân), drums, and — once upon a time — firecrackers (now safer fireworks).
What's something you'd want to start fresh on in the new year? Tết is a chance to clean the house — but also a chance to leave behind the things from last year that didn't go well, and start over.
Tết isn't really about food, or money, or fireworks. It's about going home. People travel for days across Vietnam to be with their grandparents on the first morning of the new year. The whole country is one big family reunion.
Whenever you celebrate Tết with Bà and Ông, with Mum and Dad, you are doing what every Vietnamese family has done for thousands of years.