I remember that my family usually buys about 20 chickens just for the 3 days of the Tet Holiday. Not just chickens—we buy mountains of meat, vegetables, rice, candy, beans... We prepare food like we’re feeding an army.
In Vietnamese tradition, the Tet Holiday is the year’s most important occasion—a time for family reunions.
Like most people, I leave Hanoi and return home for the three days of the Tet Holiday. But in Hanoi, where many people remain to continue earning money or looking for job opportunities, the days preceding Tet are very, very crazy.
That’s right. People seem to go crazy preparing for Tet. Many of them become frantic shopping for all the things they need. Streets in the city center become jammed. Food shops, decoration shops, furniture shops, and many other shops are full of customers and the prices skyrocket. The flood of people overflows the shopping malls and swirls around, creating a terrible chaos. People might need two or three hours just to go 1 km. A common sight in the streets of Hanoi at this time of year is a river of people on motorbikes lost in a flood of flowers and goods and dust and exhaust fumes.
At every train and bus station, a thousand people are trying to buy a ticket home for their 3-4 day holiday. With them are their children, chickens, flowers, and many other things. Most of them look tired, but eager for their visit back home.
A friend of mine calls the Tet Holiday a “terrible obsession”. Home repair and shopping storms arrive just before Tet, and during Tet there are storms of cooking and washing up.
Cooking at home, at relatives’ homes, at friends’ homes...This is the familiar circle of the Tet Holiday.
15 years ago, when I was a child, New Year’s Eve was thrilling with all the firecrackers exploding. Now firecrackers have been banned. Instead, people just fire off a few rockets. It doesn’t create the same excitement. Before, the red firecrackers warmed up every house in the country. Now, the fireworks display makes just the city center brilliant and noisy.
Most Vietnamese people still try to observe the Lunar New Year as a spiritual occasion when all the members of the family gather together.
Some say, however, that it is just a time to gain weight!
