
Nearly one hundred years ago, Tet Holiday or Vietnamese Lunar New Year evoked the same excitement and expectations it does today; except, things were very different.
Vietnamese people celebrate the Lunar New Year annually, which is based on a lunisolar calendar (calculating both the motions of Earth around the Sun and of the Moon around Earth). Tet is generally celebrated on the same day as Chinese New Year, except when the one-hour time difference between Vietnam and China results in new moon occurring on different days. It takes place from the first day of the first month of the Vietnamese calendar (around late January or early February) until at least the third day.
Many Vietnamese prepare for Tet by cooking special holiday food and cleaning the house. Many customs are practiced during Tet, such as visiting a person’s house on the first day of the new year (xông nhà), ancestor worship, wishing New Year’s greetings, giving lucky money to children and elderly people, and opening a shop.
Tet is also an occasion for pilgrims and family reunions. They start forgetting about the troubles of the past year and hope for a better upcoming year. They consider Tet to be the first day of spring, and the festival is often called Hội xuân (spring festival).
Here’s an early 20th century Tet celebration in black and white.
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People gather at the Dong Xuan Market in Hanoi the day before the Lunar New Year. It was the only “supermarket” around then. |
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A Hanoi family poses for a picture as part of Tet celebrations. |
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Young kids help out and watch as an ong do, a Vietnamese calligrapher, writes Chinese or Han characters on red paper to be used as a house decoration for Tet. |
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A woman sells dong (Phrynium) leaves to wrap banh chung, a traditional Vietnamese glutinous rice cake that is a Tet specialty, at Hanoi’s Dong Xuan Market in 1929. |
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