Random thoughts on old Tet

The ancient Vietnamese New Year customs were simple, joyful, harmonious, and imbued with national cultural identity.

Meaning the beginning of a new planting period, a new month, a new season, a new year, so Tet has great significance in the lives of Vietnamese people.

For every Vietnamese, Tet is an occasion for family reunion. Children working far away, no matter how busy they are, try to come home to celebrate Tet with their families. Everyone tries to finish their work and pay off debts before Tet, so that they can welcome a new year with peace and joy.

The ancient Vietnamese New Year customs were simple, joyful, harmonious, and imbued with national cultural identity.

Tet for Vietnamese people is a harmony between dreams and reality. Tet is not only about material things, food, house decoration… Tet is also a beautiful part of spiritual culture, remembering grandparents and ancestors, people turn to the warmth and sacredness of family, clan, and neighborhood affection.

For Vietnamese people, Tet is said to be celebrated for three days, but to have those three days of Tet, one must prepare almost the whole year.

First was raising pigs. At that time, there were no crossbred pigs or growth-promoting feed. They were all farm pigs fed with bran cooked with banana trees, sweet potatoes, or duckweed. They only grew 4-6kg per month. So, to reach a weight of 50-60kg of meat for Tet, they had to be raised from the beginning of the year.

The vast majority of people, who live by farming in the countryside, use banh chung and pork as the basis for offerings and Tet meals.

For those who can afford to wrap banh chung, they have already prepared sticky rice, green beans, etc. from the beginning of December. Even the leaves used to wrap the cakes, such as dong leaves, and the strings used to tie banh chung and banh gio, must be prepared in advance, not waiting until near Tet. How do they do it? Those who have gardens collect fallen leaves all year round, cut them, strip them thinly, and roll them up to use in the kitchen to wrap gio during Tet.

Every full moon of the twelfth lunar month, every family makes pickled onions. Big round onions, bought, soaked in water for 5 days, then peeled, cut the roots, mixed with salt for 2 days, then poured out the soaking water, it takes 7-8 days for the onions to lose their spiciness and turn into pickled onions. Although not a main dish, this dish is indispensable on the Tet tray, so in the past it was classified as one of the 6 typical Tet offerings: "The pole, firecrackers, green square cakes/Fatty meat, pickled onions, red parallel sentences."

The Tet atmosphere begins on the 23rd of December, when the Kitchen Gods are worshipped on their way to Heaven. From the 24th onwards, the atmosphere is very lively, children buy small firecrackers from the market to light up and play in the communal house yard. Adults clean the ancestral altars, visit the gods at the graves of their ancestors; and do general cleaning of the house and the alleys...

From December 27 to 30, every family is busy slaughtering pigs, wrapping banh chung and banh te, stirring chè lam, cooking peanut candy, and making acne.

Except for a few families of mandarins and townspeople, who celebrate Tet with expensive delicacies, the vast majority of people, who live by farming in the countryside, use banh chung and pork as the basis for offerings and Tet celebrations.

Usually each family slaughters a pig, families with few people or poor families share one pig, families with very few people or very poor families eat a thigh or half a thigh.

All day from December 28 to 30, the sound of pigs squealing echoed throughout the village. The riverbanks were bustling with people coming and going, here rubbing dong leaves, there making pig entrails.

Busy all year round, simple meals of a few dishes, all vegetables, pickles, pickled onions, fish, shrimp, crab, eel, snails and frogs. At Tet, they slaughtered the pig to have the opportunity to prepare before offering and then eat. The head is often used to wrap the ham called "gio thu", the tenderloin is pounded to wrap the ham, some families also wrap the ham with fat. Fried ham is made from lean meat pounded to form a plate, grilled ham is sliced ​​and marinated with onion, fish sauce, and also marinated with galangal and rice vinegar, bamboo is sharpened to make skewers of 7-8 pieces each.

Pork belly or half lean half fat is boiled until firm, then sliced ​​into a few finger-width sticks, then pan-fried. Ribs are cut into checkers and grilled with tongs or the bones are shaved to make sausage. Bones are used to stew with dried bamboo shoots. Many families also make nem thinh wrapped in guava leaves, because it has a rich New Year flavor.

Banh chung is a delicious dish, the rice grains are made by oneself without needing to be measured, but the problem is that the copper pot that can boil thirty or forty grains of rice cakes, in the village only five or seven rich families can afford it. Therefore, one has to borrow and pass it around, and must ask the owner in advance to arrange. Some families boil the cakes from the morning of the 27th, the last family to borrow is on the afternoon of the 30th, calculating to return the pot before the owner lights incense to welcome the New Year, the sound of firecrackers explodes to celebrate the new year.

In addition to the three days of Tet, eating and drinking lasts for many more days. Relatives and friends who live far away on a spring outing stop by to have a meal. Children and grandchildren roam around with games of swinging, marbles, tug-of-war, cockfighting, wrestling, chess, and when hungry, they come back to rummage for food. The custom is like this: “January is the month of eating and playing.” Eating and playing makes up for the winter of rolling around in the fields under the sun and dew. Eating and playing, because all the farming work is done.

The final preparation is the change to give to the children. First, on the morning of the first day of the new year, change is given to the children in the house, then any child who comes to visit will also be given change. In case you have the duty to visit the elders to wish them a happy new year, you should also bring change to give to the children.

On the afternoon of the 30th of Tet, every house sets up a pole in the middle of the yard, using a small bamboo or reed tree with the tip still curved like a fishing rod, tied with a red and green pennant or a bunch of wild pandan leaves as a signal to welcome ancestors to celebrate Tet, and to ward off evil spirits. It seems that the work of preparing for Tet is very much and hard. But strangely, no one complains, but everyone, young and old, men and women, are happy and excited.

People clean their houses and wrap banh chung to celebrate Tet.

Preparing for Tet to welcome the New Year, not only worry about everyday things but also prepare for love and deep relationships.

At exactly 0:00, people light incense to worship their ancestors, deceased relatives, etc., to welcome the New Year.

According to the custom of visiting first in the new year, Vietnamese people believe that if everything goes smoothly on the first day of the new year, they will be lucky all year round. The first guest to visit the house in the new year is therefore very important.

Every year-end, every family intentionally looks for cheerful, lively, agile, and morally upright people in their family and relatives to come and be the first person to enter the house on New Year's Day. The first person to enter the house usually only comes to the house for 5-10 minutes and does not stay long, with the hope that everything in the year will go smoothly.

During the 3 days of Tet, women can go to temples and pagodas, men play cards, chess, and the village organizes folk games. In the afternoon of the 3rd day of Tet, the family holds a ceremony to see off their ancestors.

On the first and second days of the New Year, people abstain from killing and do not break ground or sweep so that the colors of Tet do not fade too soon.

During Tet, people avoid saying bad things, fighting or arguing during Tet, and eliminate all hatred and conflicts.

The poor are given the opportunity by their relatives to celebrate Tet together; the beggars only need to stand at the door and say a few lucky words and the homeowner will bring them banh chung, meat, and sausage. Vietnamese people often think: "No need to worry about hunger during the 3 days of Tet / The rich open their hearts to compassion."

On the 7th day of Tet, every family will hold a ceremony to lower the flagpole, ending the Lunar New Year. People gather again at sacred places such as communal houses, pagodas, temples, and shrines, where they organize spring festivals, fetch water, sing opera, and compete in cooking rice.

When children and grandchildren have moved out, no matter how far away they are, they still try to find Tet gifts for their grandparents and parents, depending on their living conditions. If they have enough, they can have delicious and rare things; if they are poor, they must have something small as a gift. If grandparents and parents live in luxury, sometimes their children and grandchildren can bring a peach blossom branch, two pots of chrysanthemums, or a few narcissus bulbs, or even just a mortar and pestle, which is enough to make their parents happy. In addition to the duties of children and grandchildren, there is also the duty of students. Even if they have become mandarins or scholars, and their names are on the stone stele, students must still remember to visit their old teachers.

According to Vietnamplus.vn

https://mega.vietnamplus.vn/tan-man-tet-xua-5542.html

Source: https://thoidai.com.vn/tan-man-tet-xua-196681.html