Vietnam also celebrates Lunar New Year?

Vietnam is one of the few countries in the world that use the lunar calendar and one of the few countries where the Lunar New Year is celebrated nationwide.

The Lunar New Year is the biggest and most lively traditional festival in Vietnamese folklore. Vietnamese people regard the Lunar New Year as a day to say goodbye to the old and welcome the new. Generally, they start to prepare for the Lunar New Year from mid-December of the lunar calendar, while flowers, rice dumplings, spring scrolls and firecrackers are probably the most essential things for the Lunar New Year in Vietnam.

Vietnam's legal Lunar New Year holiday is three days, the third day of the Lunar New Year when families say goodbye to their ancestors; the fourth day of the Lunar New Year is the day of the "opening of the case", when government departments start working; the seventh day of the Lunar New Year when Zaojun comes back to work, and the flags or kumquats in front of the house can only be put away on this day, which means the Lunar New Year celebrations have come to an end. In the north, however, all manner of Tet-related celebrations continue through March until summer arrives.

Vietnamese people also use the 12 signs of the Chinese zodiac, and the order and phases are basically the same as in China, except that the rabbit is replaced by a cat.

Preparations for the New Year begin about half a month beforehand. The twenty-third day of the twelfth month of the lunar calendar is the day of the Zao Festival, when Zaojun (Tao Quan) goes back to heaven to report his duties to the Jade Emperor, and then takes his annual vacation until the seventh day of the first month of the lunar year, when he returns to work. Families will make sumptuous offerings to send off comrade Zao Quan in the hope that he will give a good audit report to the higher-ups for the whole family, thus bringing good luck for the next year. In addition to the usual fruits and flowers, the Vietnamese offerings include paper storks, paper carts, paper horses and a dress without pants - a nonsensical tradition that is not popular in China: are you so poor that you can't even wear pants?

Because legend has it that Zaojun ascended to heaven on the back of a carp, countless carp are released throughout Vietnam on this day, and naturally, a live carp is included in the offerings on the hearth.

During the time when Zaojun, the protector of the whole family, returns to heaven, in order to avoid being attacked by evil spirits, Vietnamese people put up a flagpole at the entrance of their homes and hang a yellow cloth, called Cau Neu, which is said to be a spell designed by the Buddha specifically to protect Vietnamese people, probably saying that "when the yellow flag is here, there are no taboos".

Vietnamese people put a lot of emphasis on decorating their homes for the New Year. In the north, the peach blossom (Canh Dao) is an indispensable decoration during the Lunar New Year, and even the poorest people will buy a bunch of it; in the center and south, they prefer the yellow apricot blossom. Interestingly, they call this New Year's apricot blossom Canh Mai, a custom probably influenced by Chinese culture: plum blossoms are used to decorate for the cold winter. However, the warm and humid climate of southern Vietnam is not suitable for plum blossoms, so apricot blossoms are taken instead.

The streets of Vietnam are ablaze with color on New Year's Day, and flower markets are filled with all kinds of flowers. Ho Chi Minh City's flower market is on Nguyen Hue Street, a few blocks east along Tran Hung Dao Street from the central square, while Hanoi's is located in the Old Quarter stretching from Hang Luoc in the north to Hang Dao in the south, and Hang Chieu in the east to Hang Ma, where many flowers can be seen. In the north, you can see many motorcycles piled up with peach blossoms or bundled with kumquat trees as temporary stalls. The nearby Dong Xuan market is also a good place to visit.

Vietnam's markets get busier as the year progresses, with everyone rushing to buy new year's goods, culminating in a frenzy of buying on the evening of New Year's Eve. But when it's time for the reunion dinner, the streets and alleys become unusually quiet, forming an extremely strong contrast between the short half-hour period, reminiscent of the Middle East's Ramadan iftar.

Speaking of reunion dinners, what do Vietnamese people eat on Lunar New Year?

There is no more important traditional food than Nian Dumplings (Banh Chung). If you go to Hue, the food capital of Vietnam, these days, you will notice that many roadside stores have green "bricks" stacked high in front of them, which are rice dumplings. It is actually a kind of Vietnamese rice cake, the practice is similar to our dumplings: glutinous rice sandwiched with steamed buttock meat, mung bean paste, the outside with banana leaves wrapped into a rectangle, and then take the twine tied up, sold in bundles. It is no wonder that the Vietnamese who carried the rice dumplings home on the streets years ago looked as if they were carrying a stack of bricks from afar.

Legend has it that the rice dumplings symbolize the earth: green means everything grows, and pork and bean paste means plants and animals flourish. Since the square rice dumplings in the north symbolize the earth, the south makes them round, but without filling, to symbolize the heavens.

Another Lunar New Year dish, called Mang, is made of bamboo shoots and pork soaked in the "infamous" Vietnamese fish sauce (Nuoc Mam), which may not be palatable to foreigners. When it comes to Vietnamese fish sauce, it's on the same level as stinky tofu and durian. Some people think it smells too bad 。。。。。。 Good food is never for everyone, and if you can't get used to it, you can only say that you are not lucky enough to enjoy it.

After the New Year's Eve dinner it's time to observe the New Year. Vietnamese people believe that their ancestors will come home to visit them at midnight on New Year's Eve, so a week or so beforehand, Vietnamese people will sweep the graves of their ancestors and invite them to return home for a reunion. On the night of New Year's Eve, Vietnamese people burn sandalwood incense and a plate of white narcissus to welcome their ancestors.

According to custom, the first sound you hear on New Year's Eve is very important and predicts your luck for the coming year: a dog barks for good luck, an ox barks for hard work, and an owl hoots for a funeral. In order to avoid hearing ominous noises and to scare away all the ghosts and demons, the Vietnamese people make their own auspicious noises, such as banging gongs and drums or setting off firecrackers. Unfortunately, the Vietnamese government banned fireworks a decade ago, and the trend now is to use tape recorders and even audio-visual combos to play the incessant, deafening crackling sound.

Like the sound, the first visitor of the New Year is also important and is called the "family". Middle-aged men with successful careers and children are most welcome; middle-aged singletons, those who have had a recent death in the family, or others who have suffered varying degrees of bad luck in the previous year are not - it's best for these people to stay home throughout the Spring Festival and not go out and spread bad luck. If you are invited to visit a Vietnamese family on the first day of the Lunar New Year, the host will usually specify the time of the visit. It is important not to go early in case the first guest arrives earlier than the host's "reservation". Some prudent hosts will even go out and come back in at the stroke of midnight to be the first "visitor" to prevent uninvited guests from unauthorized access to the door, "making a big mistake".

Vietnamese people call New Year's visits "traveling" (Xuat Hanh), and according to the custom, they should ask "professionals" to match their birthdates with their birthmarks in order to decide the time of traveling, and greet each other "chuc They greet each other with "chuc mung nam moi". Boys and girls like to go to the woods to pick up branches with new leaves, which is called "picking green" and is considered a very lucky omen. Why? In the Vietnamese language, the word "green" means "loc".

Like China, the Vietnamese have a number of taboos on the first day of the Lunar New Year, such as not mending clothes, not swearing and losing their temper, not sweeping the floor - not quite the same as in China - and not smashing things - it seems that the Vietnamese do not talk about anything like "broken peace". "Smashing and peace". On this day, elders give red envelopes to children containing "li xi" (money). Literati make a show of "opening their brushes" and writing poems about the spring festival.

The New Year's unicorn dance is popular in southern Vietnam. Similar to the Chinese lion dance, a number of people dress up and go door-to-door early on the first day of the year to say good luck. Businesses and households have already sealed red envelopes or prepared colorful objects, but if you want to take them away, you need to show some skill: the owner often hangs the colorful objects high on the lintel, and the unicorn has to stand up and swallow them in the applause of onlookers.

Vietnamese families write Spring Festival couplets for the New Year. Formerly all written in Chinese characters, the popularity of Chinese spring scrolls dwindled with the popularization of Latinization of the Vietnamese language, and the popular trend now is to use Chinese calligraphy strokes to write Latin letters. In the run-up to the New Year, calligraphy and painting stores offering this service do a particularly good business, and many such stores can be found in Ho Chi Minh City, with a wide range of printed spring couplets and New Year's paintings displayed in their halls.