Resident reporter and Vietnamese Tet in the land of the Pyramids

Working on Tet holiday in a foreign land

During his 5 years working in the Egyptian capital Cairo as a resident reporter for VNA, journalist Nguyen Tung also experienced difficulties in his work due to differences in culture, language and the harshness of the land of the Pyramids.

Mr. Tung shared that, like journalism activities in Vietnam, on important occasions such as Lunar New Year, reporters have to prepare scripts and content very early. Therefore, Tet for reporters here comes earlier than usual but also passes faster. Because right after New Year's Eve, when many people are still enjoying the atmosphere of the first day of Tet, Mr. Nguyen Tung started a working day like every other day in Egypt.

Permanent garden and Tet on the pyramid land, Figure 1 — Resident reporter working during the Spring of Quy Mao 2023.

“Unlike colleagues in Vietnam, reporters working abroad do not have the concept of being on duty during Tet because work is constantly evolving. For example, during the 2023 Tet holiday, the community Tet program with traditional activities was organized at the Embassy headquarters in Cairo very early. But then, when everyone was still enjoying the Tet atmosphere, we still had to be on duty to deal with Egyptian activities ,” journalist Nguyen Tung shared.

For that reason, the period before Lunar New Year is also a busy time, because in addition to articles summarizing the situation in the Middle East, Africa, and the situation in Egypt at the end of the year, reporters also work in three forms: television, print and photo to look back at a year of activities of the Vietnamese Embassy in Egypt, as well as the Vietnamese community living here...

However, the hustle and bustle of that work could not help the group of reporters forget their homesickness, especially on important occasions. Therefore, in each period before Tet, journalist Nguyen Tung and other colleagues always try to find unique cultural topics, closely related to the atmosphere of Vietnamese Tet.

For example, before the Lunar New Year, a group of reporters in Egypt learned about a peach plantation located on the Cairo-Alexandria highway. To be able to grow a long peach garden in the Sahara desert, the people here must have spent a lot of time and effort.

It must be known that the climate in Egypt is extremely harsh. In winter, the temperature difference between day and night is quite large, during the day it can reach 30 degrees Celsius, at night it can drop to 8 degrees Celsius. In summer, the temperature can reach 38 - 40 degrees Celsius, in the desert area with the number of rains each year can be counted on the fingers, the temperature can reach 50 degrees Celsius and sometimes there are sandstorms in March - April.

“With such difficulties, each peach tree here is very precious because it takes a lot of effort to nurture any kind of plant on this barren “dead land”. But when they knew we were Vietnamese and had the custom of decorating peach branches for Tet, many garden owners even gave us peach branches that were about to bloom,” journalist Nguyen Tung recalled.

The arduous search for the taste of Tet in the homeland

Despite having to work tirelessly, the group of reporters stationed in Egypt still celebrated Tet with all the flavors of their homeland, through activities such as wrapping and boiling banh chung, displaying fruit trays, etc. But to do that is a difficult journey, especially in a country like Egypt.

Permanent garden and Tet on the pyramid land, figure 2 — Journalist Nguyen Tung (middle) and colleagues wrap the cakes after spending 1 month preparing.

“Because this is a Muslim country that does not eat pork, we had to travel nearly 50 km to the Coptic Christian community in the Maadi district of Cairo to buy it. Other ingredients such as sticky rice, beans, string, dong leaves, etc. were ordered from Vietnam in advance by our brothers. If relatives or working groups come to Egypt, we will ask them to bring it for us,” journalist Nguyen Tung shared.

After the 7,500km journey, the dong leaves will be kept in the refrigerator to retain their green color. The time to wrap the banh chung is also usually chosen closest to 1-2 days before New Year's Eve - the moment of transition between the old year and the new year, to preserve the feeling of celebrating Tet as much as possible.

With such complex requirements, the preparation of banh chung for Tet usually has to be done many months in advance. Everyone is informed and the date is set very early because all activities in Egypt are still going on as usual.

Besides, to add to the atmosphere, everyone personally arranged the fruit tray, decorated the house, cooked some traditional Tet dishes, to welcome the new year with many hopes of success.

“On the first day of Tet, our resident reporters also organized activities to visit the Embassy, neighboring agencies in the area and some overseas Vietnamese, and give lucky money to children, in order to strengthen solidarity and community cohesion. Thereby, maintaining a traditional cultural feature of Tet in the land of the Pharaohs,” journalist Nguyen Tung shared.

It is known that the Vietnamese community living in Egypt has a modest number of less than 100 people, but they live in love, solidarity and always maintain the spirit of mutual love and mutual assistance in difficult times. Therefore, the Vietnamese Embassy in Egypt regularly organizes the Community Tet, to meet with relatives and their children, to create a warm atmosphere to welcome Spring, to turn to the homeland and share the development achievements of the homeland.

Le Phong

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