We've enjoyed observing the customs of Tet and contrasting them to what happened during Chinese New Year when we lived in Beijing. Leading up to Tet, the preparations are fast and furious and traffic in Hanoi reaches insane proportions. People are driving on all the sidewalks and traffic is simply unbearable. When I asked someone why the traffic was so bad the response I received, only half jokingly, was that all the low and mid-level provincial officials have to come to Hanoi to pay their respects (and bribes) to higher officials in the capital.
Leading up to Tet, families give lots of gifts to friends and prepare a big meal for the Kitchen Gods. Families are supposed to give a report to the Kitchen Gods of the previous year's happenings and recite prayers and make offerings of boiled chicken, eggs and junk food like potato chips (not sure when the junk food was added or why). At the end of the ceremony the family sets a fish free (usually a catfish) to let the Kitchen Gods ride it up to heaven - I offered to flush one down the toilet but Jennie didn't find that quite so funny. We were able to view the Kitchen God ceremony up close when the owners of our apartment building had their ceremony in our lobby. Jennie was able to take some movies of them chanting and praying. Here is a picture of the alter and the offerings.
Everyone decorates their homes with peach blossoms (the first tree to blossom in these parts - not too difficult when the weather is in the 60's and 70's as it is now). Also very prevalent are mandarin orange trees full of oranges, which are supposed to look like gold coins and represent wealth in the coming year. I found it hilarious to see all these trees ripe with fruit zooming around town on the back of scooters. Amazingly enough, the fruit doesn't fall off.
We spent New Year's Eve downtown next to St. Joseph's Cathedral to watch the fireworks. We woke the kids up at 11:30 pm and drove downtown. Although the fireworks were not as impressive as those in China it was still fun to see all the people out and to watch the sky fill up with lantern balloons. It is pretty cool to watch them lite and then float into the sky. Afterwords, people then burn offerings of paper goods (motorbikes, clothes, fake money) for their ancestors. Xander was excited to see all the fires throughout the city as we drove home. We enjoyed some hot chocolate to mark the new year and then went home and crashed.
The first day of the new year is spent with family and parents and grandparents give their kids red envelopes full of cash. Although it was actually the last day of the lunar year, there were lots of people handing out red envelopes at church, which our kids of course loved.
For more info on Tet customs, wikipedia has some great info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tet
For me, the sad part about Tet was that it meant that Jennie and the kids were heading back to the snowy confines of Utah for Jennie to get ready to have kiddo #3. I bid adieu to the them this week but will meet up with them on March 1st when I head back to the States for the birth.
