Read how one Vietnamese family celebrates New Year's in a uniquely Vietnamese way—preparing and eating traditional foods, observing special traditions, watching fireworks and a dragon dance, and sharing good times with family members.
Spring is coming, the period of time to which I always aspire. It means that the New Year is also coming soon. That's the first day of lunar calendar, around the end of January and the beginning of February in Solar calendar.
Regardless of age, society class, or living conditions, every Vietnamese family celebrates the New Year in the same traditional way. It's considered to be the most important and wonderful holiday in my country, since that is the time for people to leave their haplessness in the back and get their fortune for the New Year.
Similar to other houses, my family has always bustled in preparing and greeting for the New Year.
That was the preceding day of the New Year, and it was also the busiest day in my house. My mother went to the supermarket early in the morning and came back with a bunch of food. From then, the clatter of dishes and pans and the sizzle of food that has been fried were far resounding incessantly until late evening.
At any place of the house, you could even hear the noisy boil on the stove or the scrunching of my mother's spoon scratched on the pan. You could also smell the burn of coconut jam, which was being made by my sister.
"Why do you always burn it?" I shouted.
"That's the way I like," she said and laughed at me.
I loved her jam so much, but she was always burning it until the white coconut jam became the yellow jam. It was terrible! At noon, the puff of smoke and the mixed scent from various kinds of food started spreading over my house.
After that, certainly, there were my father's footsteps clattering on the floor. He left his half-painted walls in the living room to go into the kitchen and grumble to my Mom. "Your smoke is disturbing me."
In fact, he just wanted to look around the kitchen room with many kinds of food on the table. Then he smiled contentedly when seeing my mother cooking next to the tiny crackles of burnt firewood in the stove and the bright red fire, which were blazing up the kitchen.
At the end of the day, when everything was done, my house became brilliant with the colorful balloons, ribbons, and flowers. However, you shouldn't sit next to the walls in the living room because the layer of new paint was still sticky and would adhere on your clothes. Moreover, the smell of paint was very strong at the end of this day.
At 12:00 a.m. the next day, which was called the New Year Eve, everybody was almost ready to celebrate the New Year. My father would appear first in the living room, look around the room the last time, and arrange the glasses and cups on the table, although they were organized perfectly.
Traditional food was quickly laid on the altar in order to be observed as an ancestor cult by my parents. Right after the white trails of smoke from incense spreading out the air in mild smell, we knew that the New Year had started.
"Yeah! Let's go!" my two brothers exclaimed and ran out into the front yard immediately with lighters in their hands. The yard was soon dazzling with the fire flecks of the firecrackers. The crackers boomed and banged for a while. My sister and I had to close up our ears by hand in order to be away from the strong cracker sound. My brothers used to guffaw and laugh at us. My father passionately looked at the flecks and laughed heartily.
My mother reappeared timely at the door, smiled with all of us and mildly knitted her eyebrow soon after that because of that sound.
Once the sound and fire stopped, we continued walking out of the house to see and hear the burnt firecrackers from the neighbors around us. In the dark sky, you would see the flakes of fire everywhere, so it looked like you were traveling close to the star planets.
Soon after that, the red-yellow dragon appeared at the corner of the street with the cheerful sound of the drum to be ready for a dragon dancing. We entirely believed that this activity could pick up the luckiness for a whole year. The dragon started dancing vigorously in the spirited sound of drum and crackers.
At the end of the dragon dance, which lasted almost an hour and attracted an extreme huge crowd around it, we came back home, wished a Happy New Year to each other, and took a rest to be ready for the morning.
The first day of New Year began at 8:00 a.m. with traditional activities. My Dad woke up early and was usually the first member in the hall. Impatiently waiting for the rising sun, I just could sleep with one eye and get up early, too. From the upstairs, while dressing, I could hear the voices of people downstairs It increased, increased with the loud voice of my fifth uncle and his family, and then sixth uncle's family finally became noisy.
"Happy New Year!"
"Happy New Year!"
Everybody was greeting together and made a chaos tic sound that was not able to be distinguished. When I came to the hall, I saw a jubilant view of people and food, the color of new clothes, the brightness in the eyes, and happy faces.
The table was attractive with the yellow of Vietnamese New Year traditional flowers, the red of watermelon, the green and yellow of rice cake, the colorful pickled bean sprouts and many kinds of jam. You also could smell combinations of delicious food of pork, fish, and eggs. All of these traditional foods were our first meal in New Year.
The sound became nosier while children were getting in line to receive lucky money from adults. However, after a few minutes, the line was broken and became a beehive of people. Children were running around the hall, shouting, and laughing with their money in hand. At the dinner table, the roar of laughter from the men, the chortle from the ladies, the cheering sound, and the music from CD player were so animated. The party was continued all day at any time.
Next, the gambling was started at noon and dragged on until night. That's the time when people are looking forward to the luck and happiness for whole year. This sound only decreased gradually around 9:00 p.m. since guests were leaving randomly.
Finally, the house was empty and became quiet again, but the dishes and cups were found thrown in different places, on the table, on the chairs, even on the floor. "Are they our present tonight?" my sister and I wondered happily.
The silent night ended the first New Year day. After two days of joining in many activities, everybody was exhausted and quickly fell asleep with beautiful dreams of crackers, money, food, and drink. Sometimes there were some slight cracker sounds far away, the rare horn on the street, or mild music from somewhere. The main days of preparing and celebrating New Year by my family had been complete.
Written by Uyen Thanh from Vietnam
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