The Vietnamese New Year's Festival, better known as TET, falls on the first days of the Lunar New Year, which is also popularly known as the Chinese New Year. As a matter of fact, for many hundreds of years, the Vietnamese people have adopted the Chinese New Year as their own festive occasion.

Under the rule of various Chinese dynasties for over a thousand years Vietnamese people adopted many New Year's celebratory features from the Chinese. Although various aspects of the celebrations have now changed, they remain significant memories for many older Vietnamese.

This paper provides a summary of some of the former celebrations during Tet.

In the old time markets were not open daily in the countryside in Vietnam. Neighbouring villages took turns to assemble their market meetings on set days of the month in which villagers could come to offer their produce, shop for their necessities, or enjoy food dishes and/or entertainment activities.

Markets catering for Tet were the most important and crowded gathering of the year, and offered a variety of special goods and activities for this festive season. A Tet market usually started just before the 23rd day of December in the lunar calendar year. This was the day people celebrated their annual Kitchen Gods Day. On this day it was widely believed that the gods who look after one's kitchen were to leave for Heaven to meet with God.

From then on Tet markets assembled daily for people to do their Tet shopping up until the New Year's Eve. One's Tet shopping basket usually included such items as sticky rice, mongbeans, sugar, banana leaves/bamboo leaves or coral tree leaves for rice cake making. Fish, meat, onions, chokos, dried vermicelli, dried mushroom, bamboo shoots, both fresh and preserved, and so on for cooking Tet meals offered to deceased ancestors. Nice fruit such as bananas, oranges, grapefruit, plums as well as cakes, candles and flowers were used to decorate ancestral altars.

People also shopped for other festive items such as confectionery, and sweetened ginger, coconut, tamarind, chillies, lotus seeds. These foods were usually dyed in various colours. Melon seeds dyed in red were also a favourite. Girls and women loved chewing these melon seeds which helped redden their lips, without resorting to lipstick.

These days people buy new clothes at any time. But in the old days, say before 1930, people generally bought or made their new clothes only at Tet time. Children were perhaps the group most eager in looking forward to Tet to wear their new clothes.

Depending on one's social standing and/or wealth, their shopping contents and volume greatly varied. Better off people stacked their shopping baskets with expensive items, such as imported wine or brandy, tea, foreign cigarettes and biscuits, whereas ordinary folks were simply contented with locally made rice wine, home grown tobacco, locally produced tea, and home made biscuits or sweets.

As a matter of custom these festive items tended to be saved for visitors, who usually included family's friends and relatives, or such special guests as one's creditors or work bosses.

People also included in their Tet shopping list the two important celebratory items: chips of sandalwood and incense sticks. These would be burnt almost day and night during the New Year's time, especially when ancestor worshipping ceremonies were taking place.

People in southern Vietnam shopped for wax for making their own candles that were to be used for Tet ceremonies. The wax was gathered in the forests by indigenous people of Dong Nai areas. Candle wax was also available from farmers in the Ca Mau region.

Parents bought Tet paper prints for their children to welcome Tet. Tet painting prints were used to decorate homes as part of Tet celebrations. Tet was a time to display flowers within the home and out in the yard. In northern Vietnam preferable flowers for this occasion included chrysanthemum, peach and dahlia, whereas marigold and flowering holly branches were preferred in the south. Southerners also decorated their ancestry altars with watermelons.

Flowering plants were best sold at Tet. Marigold, chrysanthemum, various types of camquat, ie. small fruit mandarin, plants were common at these times. Daffodil was selected by certain better off sections of society who had the means and the time for the art of inducing the flowers to blossom at the first hours of the New Year.

Tet was a time with fruit abundantly available at the markets, as one of the important ceremonial offerings at Tet was fruit. The fruits that were generally offered on the family's ancestry altar included bananas, oranges, grapefruits, and others locally in season.

At temples the fruit offering was artfully arranged into the forms of the four sacred animal: Long (Dragon), Ly (Unicorn), Qui (Tortoise), and Phung (Phoenix). The Dragon symbolizes wisdom; the Unicorn, courage; the Tortoise, longevity; and the Phoenix, eternal beauty.

Offering a gift at Tet time is a way of showing one's respect and gratitude to one's deceased ancestors. Members of an extended family often bring along to their family's Tet ceremonies their Tet gifts, to be placed on the ancestral altars. These gifts generally include bunches of selected flowers, and selected fruits such as bananas, oranges, coconuts, papayas, mangoes, pineapples and the like. They may also bring candles and incense sticks.

Those who lived away and could not make it back to their parental home for Tet usually sent over gifts as a contribution to their family's ancestry ceremonies.

People offered Tet gifts to others to bless their lasting relations and friendships. Gifts were offerred by subordinates to their superiors, such as from workers to their supervisors or employers, or by a tenant farmer to his landlord.

Not very long ago Tet gift offering was common in Vietnam. Parents of students tended to offer Tet gifts to their children's teachers as a way of expressing their thankfulness and gratitude. A debtor also made Tet gifts to his or her creditor, a cured patient to treating doctor, nurse, or herbalist and so on.

This custom usually took place just before the year's end. However, to many sections in society this was a burden given their own struggle and inability to afford fine stuff to make gifts to those who, by custom, may expect gifts from them.

Tet gathered its momentum around the 23rd day of December in the lunar calendar. On this day Kitchen Gods were flying to heaven where they would meet with God.

It was believed that each household's kitchen was reigned by three Kitchen Gods, two males and one female. On this occasion the gods would present an annual report of the household's affairs to God.

The Kitchen Gods were believed to know every single matter of the household, be it the financial situation, the familial happiness and sorrow, the good fortune and the bad of luck, the spousal ups and downs and so on. In order to make sure that the Kitchen Gods were not reporting them badly to God people held generous celebrations to show their respect and worship for their own Kitchen Gods.

Celebratory gifts offered to their gods included hats, usually two men's hats and one woman's hat. These hats, of the types donned by court officials in the old times, were decorated with tiny mirrors and colourful threads of tinsel which all shone in the light. People sometimes simplified the ritual by offering just one hat, which has a dragon fly's wing on each side, plus a robe and a pair of mandarin's boots, made of paper.

The colours of the clothing sets offered to the Kitchen Gods depended on the year's position in the cycle of the five elements of the universe's dynamics. In a year of the metal the sets would be in yellow, in a year of the wood they were in blue, a year of the water would see them white, the red sets in a year of the fire, and black in a year of the soil.

The clothing sets would be burnt as part of the ritual of farewelling the Kitchen Gods going to the Heaven. Also burnt were gold bars, made of golden paper, for the gods' fares and pocket money. The gods' old tablet in the house was also burnt off on this occasion. A new tablet would be made and placed in the kitchen for the next 12 months.

Households with children tended to offer the gods a boiled chicken on this occasion, ususally a young rooster which had just crowed. This was for the gods to ask God to bless the children to grow up with as much prowess and pride as the young rooster.

Transport for the gods was also considered. In Northern Vietnam people presented to the gods at their farewell ceremony a live carp kept in a container filled with water. After the ceremony the fish was released into the river or lake in the belief that it would turn itself into a flying dragon and transport the envoy Kitchen Gods to God's palace in heaven. In Central Vietnam people usually offered a horse, made of colourful papers, with full saddle for riding. However for unknown reasons people living in Southern Vietnam did not normally offer any means of transport to their pilgrimaging Kitchen Gods.

Apart from offering their Kitchen Gods a hat, a robe and a pair of boots, all made of paper, the household also made other ceremonial food offerings. These included sticky rice served with chicken, a pair of boiled chicken feet, dishes of mushrooms, bamboo shoots etc... Some households offered only vegetarian dishes together with betal and betal nuts, flowers, fruits, gold and silver paper notes and so on.

Legend has it that the three Kitchen Gods used to be, as humans, a wife who was remarried after her beloved husband had gone missing, presumably dead, during warfare and turmoil. Then on a New Year's Eve, while doing the cooking for Tet the wife received a homeless and ragged beggar who turned out to be her former husband. She then sat him caringly by the fire and made him eat her food there. Suddenly her husband returned home. He got upset and jealous and started verbally abusing her. Feeling undignified and depressed the wife jumped into the fire and killed herself. After telling the husband their story, the former husband also jumped into the fire and died. Left with regret, remorse and great sorrow, the husband then jumped into the fire and also died.

Deeply moved by the triple's loyalty, dignity, devotion and love for their respective spouse and spouses God beatified them as gods and goddess. The three had then been assigned a duty of looking after humans' kitchens as well as the happiness and well being of their household's charges.

Modern Kitchen Gods who were to meet with God were usually featured wearing ankle high boots, donning a mandarin's hat, dressing in traditional robe, but without wearing a pair of pants/trousers. Vietnamese people appeared to love keeping the worship of the kitchen gods and goddess as their millennium long tradition. At the same time, they seemed to be amused at such a superstition.

Legend has it that during the reign of King Hung Vuong VI, some 4000 years ago, Vietnam was enjoying a high time of peace and prosperity. One day the King felt that he was ageing and wished to retire. He then decreed that, among his many children, the one who could offer something unique for the national ancestral worship ceremony at the upcoming new year would have his throne.

Many of his fine sons travelled the country, up to the highest mountains, down to the deepest seas, far to the most remote islands, the most rugged jungles, to find the most treasured ceremonial items possible. However one of his sons did not go anywhere. His wealth was not great enough to fund an expensive venture. He felt, as a result, desperate, frustrated and depressed. His misery came with him into his sleep. One night a sympathetic spirit joined in his dream and taught him how to make some ceremonial offerings that the spirit said would help land him the throne.

At the New Year's National Ancestral Ceremony, besides the other princes' selected rare and expensive items from far off lands, such as huge elephant's tasks, strange deer's horns, the most exotic fruits, the rarest seafood and so on, were the poor prince's two home-made sticky rice buns. One bun was square shaped and made of pure sticky rice holding a filling of mongbeans mixed with pork and very well cooked. The other bun, round in shape, was made of finely blended sticky rice with a sugary flavour. The buns, as explained by the poor prince, apart from their excellent taste, represented the sun, round, and the earth, square, as formerly believed. They were the two most vital elements for human survival, according to Vietnam's philosophy of existence at the time. Impressed by the tastes and the spiritual implications of the sticky rice buns, his King father and the court awarded the poor prince the throne.

From then on these two types of sticky rice buns had entered Vietnamese tradition of Tet celebrations. The square buns, known as BANH CHUNG, and the round ones BANH DAY, are familiar features on the family's altar during Tet.

Banh Day are dry and can be stored in a cool place for some time. In the old days villagers tended to hold competitions for making Banh Day, and sometimes Banh Chung as well, amongst women and girls. This was to encourage women to learn and keep a fine tradition of preparing good national dishes.

These days overseas Vietnamese buy sticky rice buns from Vietnamese groceries or order them from some others who make and offer them from their own homes.

On one of the last days of the "old" year, generally after the 23rd, members, young and old, males and females, of an extended family usually gathered at the family's graveyard to conduct their ritual of cleaning their relatives' graves ready for the new year's celebrations.

This included getting the graves rid of weed and overgrowth, cleaning and repainting the tombstones, repairing the tombs, mending the fences and repairing other damage to the graves' area.

This was also an occasion for them to offer flowers, fruit, and other ceremonial foodstuff to the Land Spirit, their deceased relatives' souls and their "neighbours", as well as recalling and retelling their family's legendary stories, personalities, and roots and traditions.

Those who had gone working or settling somewhere else tended to return "home" on this occasion to rejoin their family. Alternatively, they send letters and/or money to help with the ceremony's cost as well as to indicate their memory of, respect for and active participation in their family's tradition.

Formely Vietnamese people conducted during the year celebrations to welcome spring, summer, autumn, and winter, each time the new season arrived.

Then on the 15th day of the last month of the year they had a celebration devoted to all the four seasons. At this celebration prayers were offered to God for a positive upcoming new year.

Then from early 19th century the Nguyen dynasty had this celebration, popularly known as the God's worship ceremony, a day earlier, that is on the 14th day of the last month. On this occasion prayers were offered to God for peace and security for the country and the people, and optimal weather for cultivation and agricultural life.

Also on the day before the God's worship ceremony the royal court assigned its princes and other royal family's members and high ranking mandarins to visit the graves of the royal family's deceased ancestors and relatives. This was a part of the royal New Year's celebrations.

In the old times officials put away their stamps, which were used for certification of documents, during Tet times.

About five days before the year's end, those official stamps, from the village offices to the government departments were cleaned, maintained and locked away. This signalled a national holiday period throughout the country.

The stamps would then be retrieved for official use on the seventh day of the New Year. This day, known as Khai Ha, started a new working year of the nation.

Cay Neu or Tet Pole was made of a bamboo of 5 or 6 metres long which was planted at the front of one's property during Tet.

The top of the pole bore a ring to which various items hung. These included some symbolic money notes, an exorcist charm, a piece of thorny cactus, a wine holder made of hay, a paper carp as a transport means for the Kitchen Gods to travel to heaven, a fly of cloth, usually red or of five different colours, and so on.

People also hung on their "Cay Neu" a chime with small balls made of clay which touched each other in the wind and gave out musical sounds.

Legend has it that the items hanging on "Cay Neu" plus the musical sounds from the chime gave hint to the wandering spirits that the household was actively and properly functioning and that they must keep themselves away as a result.

At night a lamp was hung at the top of "Cay Neu" to help the household's ancestral spirits find their way to the household and thus spend time with their live relatives.

At the first hour of the New Year a string of fireworks, hung on "Cay Neu", were lit to welcome Tet and the arrival of the household's deceased ancestors. The noisy explosions of the fireworks were also intended to scare away unwanted wandering souls and to ward off bad luck.

In some parts of Vietnam "Cay Neu" were usually planted on the very last day of the year. However in many other parts "Cay Neu" were up as early as the 23rd of lunar December, the day the Kitchen Gods were supposed to leave for Heaven. As the Kitchen Gods were no longer present in the household it was believed that naughty wandering souls may then break in and cause unpredictable problems for the household. "Cay Neu" was therefore set up on this day to prevent this from happening.

In the old times "Cay Neu" were also planted in front of the King's quarters as well as at other official residences and institutions.

Household which were unable to set up their own "Cay Neu" subtituted them with other items which would have similar spiritual effects. These could be a small branch of a fig tree, a palm branch, or a thorny branch of cactus.

As a matter of fact, "Cay Neu" or Tet Poles had originally been planted in front of each house for the census purposes. This was to facilitate the official annual count of households in the country.

During New Year's Eve's evening in the old times children of disadvantaged households formed themselves into groups and went about saying Tet greetings to better-off households. They would then be given 'thank-you' money in return. These children would then drop these given coins into their bamboo tubes and shake them in a rhythm, known as "suc sac suc se". This was named after the sound of the coins hitting each other and the bamboo tube's walls. They then sang together a folk song wishing people a happy, prosperous and lucky new year. The song reads:

Suc sac suc se
Those households with their lamps still on
With their fires still on
Please open your doors for us to come in
Stepping up your higher floor
We'll see two dragons embracing
Stepping down your lower floor
We'll see two dragons kneeling
Stepping out to the back of your house
We'll see your roof covered with tiles
Your elephant still on its lead
Your horse still at its rest
You'll live till one hundred
And five years old
Your wife will bear your children
As cute as in the paintings
As handsome as the puppets...

Suc sac suc se
Nha nao con den con lua
Mo cua cho (anh em) chung toi vao
Buoc len giuong cao
Thay doi rong ap
Buoc xuong giuong thap
Thay doi rong chau
Buoc ra dang sau
Thay nha ngoi lop
Voi ong con buoc
Ngua ong con nam
Ong song mot tram
Linh nam tuoi le
Vo ong sinh de
Nhung con tot lanh
Nhung con nhu tranh
Nhung con nhu roi...

Singing greetings to people could also be organised by semi-professional Tet wishers. A principal wisher, usually a man, would lead his own troupe of children to visit better-off households. They would stick a paper charm to the gate of the household and chant mantra. They would then play their musical instruments, which usually comprised drums and castenets. At the same time the troupe of Tet wishers sang songs of Tet greetings to the household. The visited household would then invite the troupe to a feast of food and drink, and give them prize money in return.

The singing troupes tended to visit households of their choice one after another. This practice usually started a few days before the end of the year and went on until near midnight of the New Year's Eve, that is just before the beginning of the New Year.

This ritual was said to help drive away from the relevant household all the bad curses, discard the unwanted old things and welcome the upcoming new year.

In a number of areas these Tet wishing troupes were encouraged to carry on until the middle of January. However, in recent times these Tet greeting rituals have died out, and in their places are various lion dance troupes, sometimes known as dragon dance troupes, which are essentially of Chinese influence.

Just last century the traditional Vietnamese scripts using Chinese characters, known as Chu Nom, still formed the official written language in Vietnam. Beside Tet paintings, sheets of large hand painted characters of Chu Nom were also used as part of household decorations and topics of discussion during Tet.

The sheets of Chu Nom, usually in red colour, carried a noted verse, a meaningful phrase, or two phrases which balanced each other out in the number of words, the positions of corresponding words, and in many instances the idioms carried by each phrase.

The last type of the two corresponding phrases were known as Cau Doi, which literally means symmetrical phrases. Here is an example of Cau Doi:

Cau Doi were usually brushed on two thin and long strips of red paper, which were then hung vertically at a prominent part in the household, such as in the lounge room or within the vicinity of the ancestry altar. The words were usually painted in black ink or yellow paint, and carried messages relating to the owner's aspirations, desires, pride or general New Year's greetings. For example:

Happiness as deep as the ocean
Wealth as high as the mountain

Nature brings more time, people live longer ages
Spring covers all universe, happiness covers
each household

Better-off households, instead of using the two corresponding phrases painted on strips of paper, often had the scripts written on two lengths of red or pink silk, with the end seams being stretched out by two small timber or bamboo sticks. One end of the strip was hung up while the stick at the lower end acted as a weight holding the material in a straight and open shape.

Moreover, phrases written on red or pink papers were also glued to tools for cultivation, such as the household's ploughs and harrows, at the gate to the pigs' pen, cows or buffaloes stables, and to certain favourite trees such as betel nut trees, coconut trees, custard apple trees, longan trees, jack-fruit trees, star fruit trees, and so on.

This served as Tet greetings to the relevant subjects, tools, trees or animals. It was hoped that this would make tools more useful in cultivation and harvest, animals more healthy and better in reproducing, and trees more effective in producing plenty of fruit.

In place of Tet phrases people sometimes prefered certain words displayed at the entrance door to their household or in their living room. On a large red or pink paper or material there could be a row of these five words: "Nghi Xuan, Phuc, Loc, Tho". Literally it means 'In Harmony with Spring, Happiness, Wealth, Long Life'. This represents a wish for one's household to be blessed with happiness, wealth, healthiness, and long life.

People decorated their homes with Tet paintings or prints. These were the standard drawings or copies of those drawings which were simple both in contents and colours. Depending on personal preference or taste people bought various drawings. A mother pig and her herd of piglets happy together represented a wish for prosperity and wealth. A drawing of a rooster crowing in the morning or a peasant resting by a tree holding a tobacco pipe next to a lying buffalo represented strength and health(?) which helped one to work hard all year round. Those who longed to become wealthy would prefer paintings of a mother hen surrounded by her little chicks or those depicting two wealth spirits who wore mandarin's costume, one holding a small banner bearing the words "Tien Tai" or "Bringing Finances", and the other "Tien Loc" or "Bringing Benefits". Alternatively paintings featuring several money coins placed next to one another meant good luck for one's business or work and income earning.

Households which emphasised a good education for their children generally decorated their homes with education-related paintings, such as 'the frog teacher teaching the students at school' (Thay do coc day hoc) or 'the carp watching the moon' (Ly ngu vong nguyet or ca chep trong trang). The latter hints that a student should work hard to succeed and achieve in the way the carp, according to Vietnamese mythology, worked extremely hard to be able to jump the steep three-step-cliff upstream to turn themselves into holy flying dragons.

There were also paintings featuring a rat, who came first in the national examination for the court to recruit its officials, being escorted home in a honourable procession of rat officials and guards; or a newly top graduate at the national scholarly competition being welcomed back home from the capital city, riding a fine horse while his wife was riding on a royal hammock carried by two royal guards. These paintings were generally seen as symbols of hard work and its due rewards in demanding educational persuasion.

Other people chose to display paintings which depict characters of mythology, such as Son Tinh Thuy Tinh, relaying the vengeance between the spirit of the mountain and the spirit of the river in their triangular love; Phu Dong Thien Vuong, a godsend saviour who liberated the country from a foreign invasion; Trong Thuy My Chau, a couple caught in a trans-racial love facing the dilemma of loyalty to one's country on the one hand and faith to one's spouse on the other.

Paintings featuring the country's heroes and heroines were popular in many households. The more popular included Empress Trung Trac by herself or with her sister Empress Trung Nhi, who both wrote history through leading an uprising and successfully ousting a powerful invading force from the huge northern neighbouring country. The two sisters, however, drowned themselves at Hat Giang River on being unable to halt a second wave of invasion by the same force (43AD). Another popular figure was Madam General Trien Au, who led an army and fought with an invading force before killing herself when over run by the enemy at the age of 23 (244 AD). Then there was King Dinh Bo Linh, who started his working life as a small buffalo boy, and later became an army general who successfully saved the country from the savage war between the then 12 regional rulers (968AD). A further figure was General Ly Thuong Kiet, who made history by not only having defeated the huge invading force within Vietnam but having also chased the fleeing force deep into their own territory during AD 1075-1076.

Vietnamese Tet was a time when the Chinese cultural influence was most evident. Many people decorated their living rooms with paintings featuring Chinese fine characters. There were sets of four paintings each depicting a symbolic plant or profession: the Plum Tree, the Orchid, the Chrysanthemum, and the Bamboos or the Fisherman, the Woodcutter, the Farmer, and the Buffalo Boy, or other Chinese historical or literary figures.

However, Tet paintings were not always of a serious nature. There were paintings of humorous and humanly spirits, too, such as those which featured boy and girl duets flying high on their swings in positions of implicit sexual expressions; or a young man climbing high up a tall coconut tree picking coconuts and dropping them down and a young woman standing firm on the ground catching the coconuts with her skirt flying high and wide; or a scene of a triangular love depicting the husband humorously holding his sexy second wife with his first and older wife holding a pair of scissors and threatening to cut short the second wife's hair, and so on. People offered Tet paintings as gifts to others during this festive occasion. The theme of the painting carried the wishes offered from the giver to the receiver.

The old time Vietnam enjoyed another ritual that no longer exists. On the New Year's Eve's night and during the first three days of Tet the royal court in Hue would fire shots from cylinders filled with gun powder. This was meant to dissolve harmful air and to welcome the New Year's grace.

The shots were generally fired from 10 cylinders every 15 minutes or so, between 10 and 20 shots each time, and up to 1000 shots during the night. This ritual reportedly ceased in 1831 in order to keep the New Year's ceremonies free of disorderly noises. However fire crackers' explosions elsewhere in the community have lived on.

People who could afford it tended to start their New Year's celebrations with the cheerful explosions of firecrackers. Apart from making the occasion exciting and fun, the explotion of fricrackers was thought to chase away unwanted ghosts, who happened to hang around, and all the bad luck associated with the old year.

On New Year's Day members of the large extended family gathered to wish a happy New Year and long life to their parents and grandparents, as well as to one another. Firecrackers might be lit on this occasion to help stimulate the feelings and the atmosphere.

New Year was also a time for people to catch up with friends and acquaintances. Visitors during Tet would often bring along some fire crackers and light them at the gate of the friend's home. The host in return lit some of their own fire crackers to welcome guests.

Those from the educated class usually chose a good hour on New Year's day to write for the first time of the year. If one was excited with what had just been written, such as a fine poem, a new and original idea, one might let explode a firecracker to just congratulate oneself.

At the temples and other places of worship firecrackers were displayed to mark important New Year's celebrations and festivals.

Shops were mostly closed during the New Year's celebration period, but they might open briefly at a chosen time that was believed to be of good luck. The lucky time varied with each type of business and depended on the personal horoscope of the owner. The owner then conducted an opening ceremony with firecrackers' explosion being an important part.

Fishing communities also observed this opening ceremony practice. The boat was sailed out to sea for a short while for a ritual of praying for safety for the boat and its crew, and good luck for the coming business year. Firecrackers were then lit at sea together with burning incense and golden votive papers.

Children were usually by far the keenest group of fire cracker lighters. The lonely explosions of fire crackers at every corner of the village or town were most likely the work of children, who tended to spend most if not all of their New Year's lucky money on firecrackers. And it was children who helped keep the firecrackers going on throughout the festive period.

Historical records indicate that the tradition of formal lighting of firecrackers to welcome Tet at the beginning of the year's first day was adopted since at least the Tran Dynasty (13-14 C).

The night time of the New Year's Eve was considered as the most dramatic night of the year. The night was said to be one of the darkest, in keeping with the Vietnamese saying "as dark as the night of the New Year's Eve (Toi nhu dem Ba Muoi Tet)".

This was also the time thieves tended to prey on honest and hardworking people as the latter were more likely to have spare cash for Tet spending, to store good foodstuffs and festive goods for their celebrations, ceremonies, and partying.

Those who were unable to repay debts accumulated during the year usually found it their hardest time of the year. Their creditors, as a custom, would insist that all the debts be settled before the year's end. They would not want the loans extended into the New Year as they believed this would bring them bad luck for the whole year. The creditor or the creditors representative might go to their debtors on this day to make sure the debt was collected. A debtor who was unable to repay the debt might flee into temporary hiding, and only come back home by midnight, just before the New Year arrived.

In a normal household all the preparation for Tet would usually have been completed by the late afternoon on the New Year's Eve. The whole household then gathered for a solemn ancestors' worship ceremony. Good food dishes, alcohol, tea, festive cakes, biscuits, confectionery, fruits and flowers were all offered at the ancestry altar.

Through this ceremony the household's deceased ancestors were invited to come and stay in the household as special and holy guests for the Tet period. From then on every household member had to ensure their politeness and respect to their ancestors. They watched their mouths for careless talking, their clothes, their behaviours, their conducts, their temper etc... The household would be kept impeccably clean and tidy. They would avoid doing lowly, hard, labouring work during this period. All this was to ensure their deceased ancestors' stay was pleasant and peaceful.

The night time of the New Year's Eve is known in Vietnamese as Tru Tich, which literally means the last night of the year, and the midnight, the threshold between the past year and the new year, is called Giao Thua.

In the evening the household conducted a Tru Tich ceremony, marking the end of the old year, with good food and perhaps alcohol, usually rice wine, offered at the ancestry altar. After the ceremony the whole household would enjoy the feast and the light and cosy atmosphere until midnight, when they celebrated Giao Thua to welcome the New Year. This was, and still is, a very solemn ceremony.

In certain areas people customarily went to their village temple and together welcomed the New Year in a most serious ceremony. They then together enjoyed their food and drink party before going home for their private Giao Thua ceremony.

For Giao Thua ceremony at one's own home, a make- shift shrine would be set up, either indoor or outdoor, on which were placed such festive items as red candles, an oil lamp, fresh flowers, incense, fruits, rice wine, tea, and so on.

At 12 midnight, right on the dot, the master of ceremonies, usually the head of the family, would light up some crackers if the family could afford it to start the praying ritual. He would pray for his family's happiness, health, and prosperity; for his village, his country, and his people's peace and prosperity; and for the whole world, human and non-human alike, "not to be at war, or attacked by epidemics or famines etc...".

After a lengthy prayer he would strew rice grains and salt grains into the air in four directions, as a symbolic offering of food provision to those, dead or alive, in need.

Some households would only set off their fire crackers after their prayers. Explosions of fire crackers could therefore be heard throughout the first hour of the New Year.

At Giao Thua, the first minutes of the New Year, while households conducted their private New Year's ceremony and the village's leading members attended their public ceremony at the village's temple, the royal court had its national ceremony at the royal ancestors' temple (Thai Mieu).

Apart from welcoming the New Year on behalf of the nation the royal family used this occasion to show their loyalty and gratitude to the previous kings who had formed, maintained and developed their dynasty.

At the royal ancestors' temple it was the king himself who conducted the New Year's Ceremony with ceremonial assistance from the court's mandarins and army generals.

Households generally conducted a meal ceremony late on the New Year Eve to welcome their deceased ancestors to join them and celebrate Tet. From then on people offered some two meal time ceremonies each day to entertain their ancestry guests.

These meals were normally the best foods the family could afford, including traditional cuisine with such special ingredients as turnip-cabbage, mushrooms, dried bamboo shoots, and vesica natatoria.

The last meal ceremony, to farewell the deceased ancestors leaving the household, and thus concluding the New Year's occasion, was generally held in the evening of the fourth day. Usually this last meal featured a pot of rice soup flavoured with fish and other vegetables and herbs. This meal was a detoxicating meal which helped the guests get rid of all the fat accumulating over the previous days of meat rich meals.

During this four-day Tet period the family's ancestry altar whould be constantly lit with candles and incense. Special incense, such as incense coils and large incense sticks would last many hours at a time.

One of the special offerings at the farewell meal was a boiled young rooster, whose feet were then kept dried hanging above the kitchen stove. At a later time a fortune teller would be asked to look at these chicken feet and foretell the family's well being during the oncoming days and months of the year.

The New Year's Day was an important day in terms of familial relationship. From the early morning, extended family members one after another gathered at their family's ancestral temple or ancestral house of worship for their Tet Greetings' ceremony. There they exchanged New Year's Day's best wishes and celebrated being a year older.

To the elderly relatives people would wish longevity. To the younger ones the wishes focused on being older and perhaps wiser. To the children the wishes for being a year closer to maturity tended to be presented in an expressive way: the child would usually be given a small red envelope containing some money, generally coins, which together added up to an odd amount. An odd amount, that is 1,3,5,7 etc..., was believed to be able to clone itself into further amounts of higher values.

After that formal greeting ceremony people also visited their relatives' homes. As a rule those of a lower status, such as nieces, nephews, younger brothers or sisters, were obliged to pay a visit to their superior, such as uncles, aunts, older brothers or sisters.

However the greeting ritual during Tet was not restricted to relatives. Students also visited and offered their Tet greetings to their teachers. And those who owed a favour were supposed to visit and offer their New Year's best wishes to the ones who had done them the favour.

Vietnamese saying has it:" Mong Mot thi o nha cha, Mong Hai nha vo, Mong Ba nha thay". Literally this means 'On the first New Year's day one is found at his father's home; on the second at his parents-in-law's, and at his teacher's on the third'. The saying does not mention 'her'; supposedly the wife followed her husband.

In the old times the visitor usually brought along some firecrackers, for lighting them at the host's gate, and a card bearing his name together with the slogan 'Happy New Year' or 'Blessing New Year' as a greeting to the host. During the visit the guest generally asked the host for permission to light incense and to bow at the family's ancestry altar as an expression of respect for the host's deceased ancestors.

Meanwhile local government officials gathered at their local headquaters and together said their Tet greetings to the king, while facing the direction of the capital.

On the New Year's Day, the household's first visitor, who came to pay a New Year's visit and offer his/her New Year's greetings, was known as the firstfooter.

It was widely believed that the status of the household during the coming months, that is whether it would be prosperous and full of peace and luck, or filled with losses and disasters, depended very much on the characteristics of its firstfooter. Someone with a wicked soul would surely bring about unpredictable problems for the household. Likewise, a mean spirited guest would bring a disastrous future.

As a result, households which cared more about this belief would arrange beforehand for their favourite guests to act as their New Year's firstfooters. These firstfooters, who were generally cheerful, happy, nice, healthy, friendly and generous, would, it was believed, bring with them good luck, happiness, prosperity, and other good fortunes.

However, some household heads, who did not want to take risks or to trust their families' vitality, fate and future to an outsider as their firstfooter, would firstfoot their houses themselves, sometime before the new day dawned.

The household's firstfooter usually brought some firecrackers which would be exploded at the host's gate as a friendly greeting. During this important visit the firstfooter offered to the host and his family good wishes, such as happiness and long lives, good career promotion or business prospect, prosperity, or 'having a son at the start of the year and a girl at the year's end', depending on what the host would like to achieve. In return the firstfooter would then be offered good wishes from the host, as well as Tet's delicious foodstuff.

On the New Year's Day people observed a traditional ritual of going out for the first time of the year, and this was known as Xuat Hanh. This ritual represented looking for luck for one's own family and oneself.

In preparation for this ritual people tended to refer to horoscopic guides in advance or to consult with a scholar who had access to relevant references, or to visit a fortune teller. This was for guidance in selecting the best time of the day and the best direction to walk.

This was meant to bring a person in touch with the good spirits: the Honour Spirit for financial gain and prosperity, and the Happiness Spirit who would bring about happiness, good news and peace.

After that first time out ritual, one usually went on paying a New Year's visit to elders, relatives and friends, and offering them best of wishes for the coming year.

For farmers the first time out also represented a weather enquiry for the family's crops during the year and for other significant circumstances.

At sunrise on the New Year's Day farmers would go out and investigate the New Year's wind patterns. A southerly wind implied an upcoming bad drought. A westerly told of a year of troublesome events. A south westerly would bring about epidemic episodes. An easterly would be followed by serious flooding. A northerly promised a medium good harvest. A best harvest came with a south easterly wind, and a north westerly would be bright for a harvest of beans and nuts.

Many people went and still go to their local temple or pagoda to celebrate Giao Thua, that is to welcome the New Year. At the end of the celebration, leaving for home they often observed another ritual, picking a tree bud for good luck. The tree bud would then be brought home and placed at their family's ancestral altar. The 'good luck bud' could also be a tiny branch of a fig tree, a cactus leaf, or a small branch of an evergreen tree for all year round luck and fortune. The bud gathered at the pagoda was believed to carry a blessing from Buddha.

These days officials tend to hang good luck envelopes in the trees surrounding pagodas for pilgrims to pick. This is to prevent damage being done to the trees.

In fact many would not pick a bud or a branch. Instead they lit an incense stick at the temple and, after saying prayers there, brought the burning incense home and placed it on their ancestry altar for good luck.

Also for good luck a household may ask their regular water pedlar to fill their water tank after Giao Thua, the midnight New Year's ceremony. This symbolised a wish that good luck 'flows in like water'.

During Tet people tended to observe certain forbidden practices. They avoided using bad language, slang or language carrying cruel connotations, such as 'kill','hate','beat','starve'. They also avoided behaviours that may land them into trouble, legally or socially. It was a belief that a troublesome New Year would bring about bad luck for the whole year.

As a result people avoided swearing, drinking to excess, losing their temper, fighting with each other, either verbally or physically. People also avoided breaking such things as a mirror, a bowl, or other breakable household items.

Furthermore people avoided wearing black for fear of bad luck, or white as white was the colour for a funeral. Talking about farewelling was also avoided for fear of separation. Those who had lent money to others even avoided asking for the loan to be repaid during Tet for fear of getting bad luck financially.

Those who normally had mutual animosity also avoided showing hostility, verbally or by gestures, to each other during Tet. They tried instead to treat each other with peace, tolerance and good will in order to avoid bad luck for the coming days and months.

Most of the daily household tasks were temporarily avoided. People did not sweep their house, or clear out the garbage for fear of throwing away the good luck and blessing the New Year had brought about.

Mess baskets were not used during Tet, as were other old and torn containers, especially those with holes that would let the New Year's prosperity and blessing drop away through the holes, gaps or cracks.

Families with girls of marriage age dreaded that a never married and middle aged woman might firstfoot their household for fear of her bringing a similar "fate" to their daughters.

People who were mourning a loved one's death were not supposed to firstfoot others' homes or to even pay a New Year's visit to others. So they would not bring similar bad luck, pain and grief to other people.

Women who were pregnant stayed home during the prime Tet time as pregnancy and childbirth were believed to be associated with crisis.

The household's grain grinder was not to be emptied during Tet. People usually filled their grinders with grains as a way of wishing for a whole year rich of agricultural produce and full of prosperity.

Young children may be given a charm, contained in a red little bag, which they wore around their necks to protect themselves from being interfered with by bad spirits.

To avoid harassment from evil and trouble-seeking spirits people lay powdered lime in their grounds and on their front verandah. The lime also helped keep their home hygienic.

People may draw with lime on the ground three squares and seven circles in accordance with the wishing maxim:

Ba vuong sanh voi bay tron
Doi cha vinh hien doi con sang giau
(The three squares go with the seven circles
Father's life is full of fame and honour
Children's life full of wealth and privileges.)

An educated person observed the custom of setting his pen to paper for the first time on the first day of the New Year. This cultural ritual was believed to help bring about positive and creative activities and events for the whole year.

People usually chose a good hour on the New Year's Day to write for the first time of the year and to welcome the New Year.

In the old days one normally wrote a few words in the old Vietnamese scripts (Chu Nom), which were derived from the Chinese characters. These words generally described an expectation of a good, safe and happy year throughout.

For some this was a time for some serious writing. Others composed a poem expressing their own aspirations or emotions as a way of celebrating Tet.

The seventh day of the New Year was generally seen as the last day of the New Year's celebrations, or Tet. People removed their Tet poles (Cay Neu) from their front gates. From then on the community went back to its normal life and ordinary activities.

Government officials also ceased their holidays and officially returned to their bureaucratic business. They conducted their own back-to-work ritual by marking their stamps on official papers as a symbolic wish for peace, security and prosperity.

Army officials celebrated this day by using their swords to kill an animal, such as a buffalo, a cow, a pig, chickens or ducks, for a worshipping ceremony.

Ordinary people marked their new working year with ceremonies approriate to their trade, profession or business. Their ceremonies, generally devoted to the deceased founder of their trade, profession or business, usually took place on the ninth day of the New Year.

The ceremonial joss-paper offerings that people generally displayed on their ancestry altars usually included gold money notes, silver money notes, gold bars and silver bars made of paper, coloured paper sheets symbolising cloth material, and the like.

There was a belief that once those ceremonial offerings were burnt, one's deceased relatives in the world beyond would receive the corresponding money, gold, silver and material for their own use there.

After these paper offerings had burnt out, the worshipper then poured ceremonial wine from a little cup over the hot ash to ensure that the money, gold, silver, or other material was promptly delivered to the nominated relatives.

In certain areas the worshipper who conducted the burning ceremony kept turning a piece of sugar cane on the ceremonial fire, as an offering of a walking stick to deceased elderly relatives on the other side of our living world.

The burning ceremony took place on the third, seventh, or tenth day of the new year, depending on the practice of the family or the area of the country. However the burning of the ceremonial joss-paper offerings usually took place during the family's ceremony to farewell their dead ancestors, who had been staying with the family for Tet, the New Year's celebrations.

In the New Year people were not supposed to resume work on the land before formally asking permission from their local Land Spirit. Even those who had died during Tet could not be buried before the Land Spirit's New Year ceremony conducted at their locality.

There was not a set day for such a ceremony, which very much depended on the local area's custom. However a New Year's worship ceremony for the Land Spirit would generally take place before the fourth day of the New Year.

The village or shire tended to hold a general Land Spirit's ceremony for the whole village or shire. During the ceremony the master of ceremonies would conduct a symbolic digging and then pick up a block of soil and place it on the ceremonial altar. He then offered prayers to and asked for permission from the Land Spirit for the villagers to resume their work on the land.

Other professions such as bricklayers, carpenters, and fishermen, also waited for this ceremony to take place before returning to work after enjoying their Tet's break.

Most Vietnamese in the old days attended a mass at their local Buddhist temple on the first day of the lunar month, and on the full moon day which fell on mid month, apart from other major ceremonies.

The ceremony of the first full moon of the year was seen as the second most important one of the year after the New Year's Day. There was this saying: "Le quanh nam khong bang le ram thang gieng"; literally this means that attending masses all year round doesn't match attending the one on the first full moon day.

As the name itself implies the Welcoming Spring ceremony took place in the New Year. However this was a very national ritual which was conducted by the King himself. Some preliminary parts of this ritual took place during the last month of the year.

The main ceremonial offerings were the clay statues of an agricultural spirit and of a ploughing buffalo. The ceremonial prayers were for optimum weather, especially good rain, for good crops and harvests for the whole nation, and for the people to live in peace and to enjoy full employment.

The King himself then did some soil tilling in the field as a symbolic blessing for a good harvesting year. This ritual lasted until the beginning of World War II when the last royal dynasty of Vietnam was disintegrating.

To the old Vietnamese society which relied fully on agriculture, cultivation, fishing and gathering from the forests, with little help from machinery and technology, the New Year, popularly known as Tet, was a resting time after a long hardworking year. It was a time for family gathering to catch up with the long missing familial link, and a time for people from all walks of life to attend to spiritual and cultural life through various festivals and ceremonies. Depending on local traditions and affordability Tet lasted from a few days to a couple of months. Tet activities also varied, ranging from elusive rituals for a few to popular festivals for all.

Many of those festivals, ceremonies, and festive activities no longer exist, due mainly to societal, cultural and political changes, and a lack of general conservation efforts. Warfare has had a lot to do with these losses too.

Overseas Vietnamese, faced with even further loss of cultural activities during Tet, have used much of their time, energy and resources trying to maintain as many as possible of the traditions.

Many of the older population save up so they can spend their Tet time in Vietnam. This might turn out to be a visionary idea, given the fact that contemporary Vietnamese society is under great pressure from the affluent West.