2017 Vietnamese Children Festival

will be held at C.J Greefield Sport Complex, Freeman Road, Richland

Date & Time: 5.30pm-10pm on Saturday 8th October 2017

 Tết Nguyên Đán - New Year Festival

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 marking the arrival of spring based on the Lunar calendar, a lunisolar calendar. The name Tết Nguyên Đán is Sino-Vietnamese for Feast of the First Morning, derived from the Hán nôm characters.

It is the time for family reunions, commemoration of ancestors, harmony and exchange of best wishes, special food, new clothes, new beginnings and other festive activities. The few days at the start of the year are the most important days. All activities are undertaken with great care to ensure that people will have happiness, good fortune and longevity throughout the year.

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.

Tết in the three Vietnamese regions can be divided into three periods, known as Tất Niên - Before New Year's Eve, Giao Thừa - New Year's Eve, and Tân Niên - the New Year, representing the preparation before Tết, the eve of Tết, and the days of and following Tết, respectively. All of these customs are to celebrate Tết in Vietnam.

In Vietnam, lì xì are typically given to those who are younger as long as they are bachelors. Red envelopes are mainly presented at the TET Lunar New Year. This tradition is called mừng tuổi (happy new age) in the north and lì xì in the south. Usually, children wear their new clothes and give their elders the traditional Tết greetings before receiving the money. Since the Vietnamese believe that the first visitor a family receives in the year determines their fortune for the entire year, people never enter any house on the first day without being invited first.

The red color of the envelope symbolizes good luck and is supposed to ward off evil spirits.

Vietnamese New Year Foods

Bánh Chưng or sticky rice cake is served particularly at Vietnamese New Year's festival, which occurs during the first three days of the first month of the lunar calendar. It is a square cake, wrapped in banana leaves and tied with lacings of flexible bamboo slivers. It is a very rich food for the interior contains a filling of bean paste to which may be added small bits of pork meat, both fat and lean. This filling, which is amply seasoned, is pressed between layers of glutinous rice.

Rice cake / Bánh Chưng Its square shape is considered a symbol of the thankfulness of the Vietnamese people for the great abundance of the Earth, which has supplied them with nutritious food throughout the four seasons of the year. For more information about Vietnamese Traditional Food please click here

Hạt Dưa: roasted watermelon seeds, also eaten during Tết.

Dưa Hành: Pickled onion and pickled cabbage.

Củ Kiệu: Pickled small leeks.

Mứt: These dried candied fruits are rarely eaten at any time besides Tết.

Cầu Dừa Đủ Xoài - In southern Vietnam, popular fruits used for offerings at the family altar in fruit arranging art are the custard-apple/sugar-apple/soursop (mãng cầu), coconut (dừa), papaya (đu đủ), and mango (xoài), since they sound like "cầu vừa đủ xài" means we pray for enough money to spend in the southern dialect of Vietnamese.

Thịt Kho Nước Dừa Meaning "Meat Stewed in Coconut Juice", it is a traditional dish of fatty pork stomach and medium boiled eggs stewed in a broth-like sauce made overnight of young coconut juice and fish sauce (nước mắm). It is often eaten with pickled bean sprouts and chives, and white rice.

Decorations

Cherry Blossom flower. Hoa mai.Traditionally, each family displays cây nêu, an artificial New Year Tree consisting of a bamboo pole 5 to 6 m long. The top end is usually decorated with many objects, depending on the locality, including good luck charms, origami fish, cactus branches, etc.

At Tết every house is usually decorated by hoa mai – Ochna integerrima (in the central and southern parts of Vietnam) or hoa đào – peach flower (in the northern part of Vietnam) or hoa ban (in mountain areas). In the north, some people (especially the elite in the past) also decorate their house with a Prunus mume tree (also called mai in Vietnamese, but referring to a totally different species from Ochna integerrima). In the north or central, the kumquat tree is a popular decoration for the living room during Tết. Its many fruits symbolize the fertility and fruitfulness that the family hopes for in the coming year.

Vietnamese people also decorate their homes with bonsai and flower plants such as chrysanthemum (hoa cúc), marigold (vạn thọ) symbolizing longevity, mào gà in Southern Vietnam and paperwhite flower (thủy tiên), lavender (viôlét), hoa bướm in Northern Vietnam. In the past, there was a tradition that old people tried to make their paperwhite flowers blossom right the watch-night time. They also hung up Dong Ho Paintings and thư pháp (calligraphy pictures).

2013 Vietnamese Children Festival

will be held at C.J Greefield Sport Complex, Freeman Road, Richland

Date & Time: 2pm-8pm on Saturday 28th September 2013

Children's Moon Festival

Tết Trung Thu (tet-troong-thoo) is held on the 15th day of the 8th lunar month, when the moon is at its fullest. In the northern hemisphere this is in autumn, when rice is harvested before winter. Some people say that because the moon is full, the festival is a celebration and prayer for the fullness and completeness of life. Others believe the festival is to remind the sun to come back after winter, because without the sun the rice will not grow. It is also a children's festival. In Vietnam children make processions carrying lanterns, which they have bought or made themselves. It is always celebrated at night because the light is important.

The purpose of Trung-Thu Festival is to promote Vietamese culture, education, innovative ideas, music, sports, arts and crafts and poetry to young people. The sights that will be seen are captivating panorama with the children's lantern procession, colourful shows, songs and dances.

The moon and this special festival still fascinates both adults and children. Its craters seem to change to animals, beautiful ladies and mountain tops. The full moon is a time when the dark places of night are lit with bright lanterns, creating a rainbow of colour, movement and fun.

It is a time for happy, laughing children at lantern parades enjoying an evening sweetened with lotus-paste filled moon cakes. At every Mid-Autumn Moon Festival time stands still and adults are children once more. The moon conjures magic and recalls legends, precious legacies of the past. This is a time when along with the offerings to the lady in the moon, neighbours and friends exchange gifts in a happy renewal of friendship and lovers renew vows with romantic trysts in the moonlight.

There is a favourite story told during the Moon Festival about Thằng Cuội the buffalo boy and the moon.
Thằng Cuội had a magic tree that could restore life. He always reminded his wife to water it with clean water because it could not be exposed to anything dirty. One day she forgot to water it before Thằng Cuội returned, so instead she urinated on it. Immediately it began to grow and grow. Thằng Cuội tried to chop it down with his axe, but he got caught in it and it kept growing until it reached the moon, taking him with it. Now you can look up at the moon and see Thằng Cuội sitting at the foot of his tree.

Moon Cakes (Bánh Trung Thu)

Moon Cakes (Bánh Trung Thu) are a sweet specialty found throughout Vietnam in mid-autumn. If a cake is perfectly made, one can finish the entire treat without feeling bloated. If not, then even one slice can seem too much. The recipe determines how delicious, rich of soft a cake is and how long it will last without spoiling.

Most mooncakes consist of a thin tender skin enveloping a sweet, dense filling. The mooncake may contain one or more whole salted egg yolks in its center to symbolize the full moon. Very rarely, mooncakes are also served steamed or fried.

Traditional mooncakes have an imprint on top consisting of the Chinese characters for "longevity" or "harmony" as well as the name of the bakery and the filling in the moon cake. Imprints of the moon, the Chang'e woman on the moon, flowers, vines, or a rabbit (symbol of the moon) may surround the characters for additional decoration.