Customs and taboos for Luna New Year in VietNam

Tết Nguyên Đán, more commonly known by its shortened name Tết, is the most
important and popular holiday and festival in Vietnam. It is the Vietnamese New Year
based on the lunar calendar, a lunisolar calendar. The name Tết Nguyên Đán is Sino-
Vietnamese for Feast of the First Morning
Tết is celebrated on the same day as Chinese New Year though exceptions arise due to
the one-hour time difference between Hanoi and Beijing. It takes place from the first day
of the first month of the lunar calendar (around late January or early February) until at
least the third day. Tết shares many of the same customs of its Chinese counterpart,
having been derived from it. Many Vietnamese prepare for Tết by cooking special
holiday foods and cleaning the house. There are a lot of customs practiced during Tết,
like visiting a person's house on the first day of the New Year (or xông nhà in
Vietnamese language), ancestral worshipping, wishing New Year's greetings, giving
lucky money to children and elderly people, and opening a shop.

Tết is also an occasion for pilgrims and family reunions. During Tết, Vietnamese visit
their relatives and temples, forgetting about the troubles of the past year and hoping for a
better upcoming year. They consider Tết to be the first day of spring and the festival is
often called Hội xuân (spring festival).

These customs come from traditions passed from generation to generation and have
become standard. Because of the idea that the beginning will affect the middle and the
end of the year, Vietnamese people avoid doing bad things and try to do good things
during Tết holiday.

Do

• One should give people lucky presents to enhance the relationship between
themselves and others: new clothes, peach branches (for expelling evil), cocks
(wishing for good manners), new rice (wishing for being well-fed), rice wine in
a gourd (wishing for a rich and comfortable life), bánh chưng (or bánh tét) and
bánh dày which symbolize sky and earth (for worshipping the ancestors), red
 things (red symbolizes happiness, luckiness, advantages) like watermelon, dogs
(the bark – gâu gâu – sounds like the word giàu - richness in Vietnamese
language), medicated oil (dầu in Vietnamese, also sounds similar to giàu).
• One should give lucky Dong Ho Paintings such as: "Gà đàn" (wishing for
having many children), or "Vinh hoa", but should not give unlucky Dong Ho
paintings like "Đánh ghen or jealous fighting" related to legal proceedings.
• One should buy a lot of water for Tết, because people wish for money to flow
like water currents in a stream (proverb: "Tiền vô như nước").
• One should sprinkle lime powder around the house to expel evil.
• One should return all things borrowed, and pay debts before Tết.
• Go gambling after you are done with the festivities.

Don'ts

• One shouldn't say or do bad things during Tết.

• One shouldn't hurt or kill animals or plants but should set them free. The reason
for this originates from Buddhism's causality.
• One shouldn't sweep the house or empty out the rubbish to avoid luck and
benefits going with it, especially on the first day of the New Year. One
shouldn't let the broom in confusion if people don't want it to be stolen.
• One shouldn't give these presents to others: clock or watch (the recipient's time
is going to pass), cats (mèo in Vietnamese language pronounced like nghèo,
poverty), medicine (the receiver will get ill), squid (its ink is black, an unlucky
colour), writing ink (for the same reason), scissors or knives (they bring
incompatibility).
• One shouldn't have duck meat because it brings unluckiness.
• One shouldn't have shrimp in case one would move backwards like shrimp, in
other words, one would not succeed.
• One shouldn't buy or wear white clothes because white is the colour of funerals
in Vietnam.
• One shouldn't let the rice-hulling mill go empty because it symbolizes failed
crops.
• One shouldn't refuse anything others give or wish you during Tết.

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