Preserving culture from the old Tet space

The activity of recreating the old Tet space at museums, schools, restaurants, hotels, cafes, and public places has become familiar in recent years, but the joy and excitement of welcoming the traditional Tet is the same every year. Whether it is just checking in to capture the moments of gathering with family and friends before the Lunar New Year, experiencing making banh chung, going to the countryside market, or wanting to find and immerse yourself in the old Tet space... are all ways for young people to express their love, respect, and cherish the beautiful customs and practices that bear the imprint of national culture every time Tet comes and spring comes.

A space imbued with traditional Tet atmosphere with bright red colors at Cafe Foam (Ha Long City).

Lunar New Year is the biggest and oldest traditional New Year, imbued with the cultural identity of the Vietnamese people. The coming of Tet and spring is the time to close the old year and open a new year with many beliefs and wishes for good things, peace, happiness, luck and success. In particular, with the desire to preserve and help young people better understand the good values of their ancestors and appreciate more the national cultural values, the activity of recreating the old Tet space is carried out in many rich forms.

In Ha Long City, when the peaceful and warm Christmas season has passed, many coffee shops have quickly "dressed up" themselves with designs and decorations that bring the traditional Tet atmosphere to welcome customers. Although each shop has its own decoration style, most of the miniatures are in the old Tet style, conveying nostalgia for houses with antique objects, red parallel sentences, apricot blossoms, peach blossoms, chrysanthemums, banh chung, watermelons, firecrackers, lucky money envelopes...

Ms. Tran Viet Phuong, owner of Opal rooftop coffee and tea (Ha Long City), shared: Grasping the current trends of young people, according to each festival season of the year, we proactively design the space, decorate, and display accessories to create a suitable check-in corner to attract customers. Especially during the long Lunar New Year holiday, along with decorating the space with the typical red color of Tet, we also have additional services of renting traditional Ao Dai and taking photos for customers. As a young person who loves traditional culture, I hope that creating a traditional and familiar Tet flavor in a modern coffee shop space is also a way to help the previous generation reminisce about their childhood memories, and the younger generation appreciate and preserve the simple beauty of the old Vietnamese Tet and capture memorable Tet moments with family and friends.

Tet atmosphere at Opal rooftop coffee and tea shop (Ha Long city) attracts many young people to check-in.

These days, at the Provincial Youth Cultural Palace, the joyful and bustling atmosphere of preparations for the Tet experience program "Youth with the spring street corner" is being quickly completed to welcome young people to come and play. Through activities such as wrapping banh chung, folk games, calligraphy, country market cuisine , Tet decoration workshops and check-in corners, a simple and joyful old Tet space will be recreated, a place for young people to not only visit and experience culture but also learn many useful skills.

Director of the Provincial Youth and Children's Cultural Palace Bui Thi Van Anh said: In the busy and hectic pace of modern life, many families do not have time to experience Tet culture with their children such as cooking, wrapping Chung cakes, going to Tet markets... Therefore, through the Tet experience program "Youth with spring street corners" which has been maintained and organized for many years, we hope to help children learn specifically, vividly and directly participate in Tet activities, immerse themselves in the atmosphere of welcoming Tet early through meaningful experiential activities instead of just reading information and knowledge in books, newspapers, watching TV. From here, we create an environment to educate children about cultural traditions and history in a close, practical and effective way.

Brightly decorated, full of traditional Tet atmosphere is how Citadines Hotel and many large hotels welcome visitors on the occasion of Lunar New Year 2025. *Photo: Ta Quan*

Along with that, many large hotels such as Muong Thanh, Novotel, Citadines... have arranged a cozy traditional Tet space with many unique Vietnamese Tet experience activities for foreign tourists. Tourists are taught how to make traditional cakes and jams; guided on how to play folk games; learn about Vietnamese Tet culture... It is expected that from January 22 to February 2, 2025, at the Flagpole yard, Planning Palace, Fair and Exhibition of the province, the Festival of Tet cultural space of ethnic groups in Quang Ninh province will take place with unique customs, full of meaning, to introduce to the people and tourists the colorful cultural Tet picture in Quang Ninh.

In many different ways, recreating the space of ancient Vietnamese Tet not only affirms that despite the ups and downs of time, traditional Tet customs will still be preserved and practiced by people in life, but also shows love for homeland, country, respect and pride for the thousand-year-old national culture of each citizen.

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