Tet-Festival 2009

On January 26, 2009 it was again time to celebrate the tet festival (viet.: Tết Nguyên Đán, engl.: Festival of the first Morning, dt.: Fest des Ersten Morgens). For almost 4,000 years, Tết is celebrated from the first day of the first month of the lunar calendar. This year - the year of the Ox (trâu) - the Vietnamese students of Hanover’s colleges/universities prefered to celebrate nine days earlier due to the upcoming stress with their exams.

My bro an me were invited from two of our Vietnamese friends to join their festival. And there were only us two non-Vietnamese. For me it was the second time I was invited to join the Tết. It took place in the seminar room of the Otto-Klüsner-Haus next to the Leibniz University of Hanover. Everybody was nice dressed - boys in suits and girls in their traditional costumes. On the left side of the room the buffet was prepared with traditional Vietnamese food.

Opposite the entrance they painted the white wall with a branch of a flourishing peach tree symbolizing the beginning of spring, and the slogan “Chào Xuân 2009″, and on both sides there hung lots of masks.

To the left there stood a table with some food for sacrificing on it. The traditional New Year’s Tree (cây nêu) did not either miss, which is a obligatory part of the decoration. It is a long decorated bamboo. There was also a decorated kumquat tree of which its fruits symbolize an upcoming fertile new year. On the floor there were everywhere little presents. Throughout the whole festival two moderators took us through the evening’s festival. They did a great job even though it was all in Vietnamese

Some students started the program with the traditional dragon dance. Some other students shared their beautiful voices throughout the program by singing typical Vietnamese songs sometimes even combined with a little dance performance.

With a beamer we now and then had the chance to get presented little video clips or photos from last year now leaving behind us, like the Miss VietNam, a visit of Hanoi, a play of some students and photos of the decoration day before today (giao thừa), and the ‘couples of the year’.

About halftime the two moderators threw little red round presents into the crowding audience fighting for catching them. Everybody who had the chance to get one was asked to come to the front to pull a little red envelope. In each envelope there was a little message for the new year they had to read out loud. One guy seemed to detect us two Germans and took care to translate his directly into English.

Towards the end of this evening they opend the buffet. Everybody got a piece of the tradional ‘bánh chưng’-cake which is sticky rice filled with vegetables and meat or fish being wrapped in banana leaves and steamed in water for hours, and a salad of pig skin, lettuces and other things. It was again very delicious.

On the whole it was again a successful great evening and I had the opportunity to get closer to the still foreign culture, the Vietmese culture. I’m really in big favor with my Vietnamese friends inviting us to share their customes, letting us be part of THEM!