“tết ”is a word of Chinese origin and a phonetic transcription “tết” , a sino-vietnamese term which means “the joint of a bamboo stem” and, in a wider sense, the “beginning of a meteorological period of the year”.
The passage from one period to the next may cause climatic disturbances (heat, rain, mist) that must be exorcised by ritual sacrifices and festivities. Thus, there are many tet throughout the year (mid-autumn tết, cold food tết, etc.). the most important of all is “tết cả” (“big tết”), which marks the lunar new year.
Tết occurs somewhere in the last ten days of February, nearly halfway between winter solstice and spring equinox. Although the lunar new year is observed throughout east asia, each country celebrates tết in its own way in conformity with its own national psyche and cultural conditions.
For the Vietnamese people, tết is like a combination of Christmas, western new year’s day, easter, American thanksgiving, and everyone’s birthday. It is a festival of communion, purity, renewal, and universal peace.
Why is tết a festival of communion?
For a peasant people attached to the earth since the distant past, tet has been and remains first of all a festival of communion with nature. In the rhythm of seasons, it marks an interlude for farmers and rice fields to rest after twelve months of labour . tet is not to be missed. For example, the eighteenth-century king quang trung, the leader of the biggest peasant revolution in Vietnamese history, celebrated tet some days in advance so he could launch a decisive attack upon the invading qing army stationed in thang long (present-day ha noi).
Tet is festival of communion for the members of the same family and village. In former times, villagers hardily went outside their bamboo fences; those who could not return to their families for the fist three days of the year felt deeply homesick, more than at any other time of the year.
All members of the family – grandparents, father, mother, brother, sisters, uncles, and aunts – gather together to “eat tet” (an tet) under the same roof. Friends and relatives visit one another and exchange greetings and good wishes.
Tet is also a festival of communion of all citizens of viet nam at home or abroad. The revolution of august 1945 put an end to eighty years of French domination; tet of 1946 was dubbed “tet of independence”. During his time as president, ho chi minh wrote his tet greetings each year in a poem, which he himself read for broadcast at midnight on the eve of tet. These poems reflected the current problems and prospects of the nation.
Tet is also a festival of communion of the living with the dead. The ephemeral world of the living celebrates under the benevolent gaze of the ancestors, who are invited back from the other world during the course of a ceremony to mark the transition from the old year to the new.
Relatives and friends coming to deliver season’s greetings also pay homage to the spirits of the dead. Vietnamese attend the tombs of their kin with pious care before the old year expires: they clear all weeds and replace the plantings on tomb.
Those who died for national independence are not forgotten; in each village, their last resting place is a site of collective pilgrimage.
November 23rd, 2009 
admin 
Spring, summer, autumn, winter, and spring again. Nature always renews its youth, returning to its primary purity and freshness. People, who are part of nature, follow the same course.
Posted in 
Tags: 
