LUNAR NEW YEAR FESTIVAL (Major Festival)
Hits: 613
The Vietnamese’s grand festival or Lunar New Year Festival (Tết) falls on the 1st day of the first month (Lunar calendar) and is a major traditional festival of the entire Vietnamese people.
It is difficult to pinpoint when the Vietnamese people began to organize these rituals and festivals. However, it is believed that these events date back to many centuries ago, from the Lý, Trần, Lê… dynasties and have borne a humanistic of the past Thăng Long Great-Việt culture.
They are the days which mark the end of a food crop during which all farmers are free from work to welcome the coming of a new spring and a new promising cycle after one year of hard labour. On these days, though being wrapped up in work or living far from home the Vietnamese often feel anxious to return to their native place for reunion with their family and their relatives to take care of their ancestral altars (Fig.1) and to see again bamboo groves, areca trees (Fig.2), water wells, village ponds and dykes… Those who cannot come back home are considered unhappy and miserable. This custom has been engraved deeply in the mind of the Vietnamese people in a sacred and fine way and it will emerge before our eyes with more than 100 woodcuts, made early this century.
Planting an areca palm-tree, one must take good care of it since its early days. The tree must be robust to produce big nuts and to be fruitful, with green peel, sweet and big core. Below the areca palm-tree, the Vietnamese farmers in southern cities used to plant interspersed banana, vegetables, pine-apple… to use up the land while maintaining the humidity and manuring the areca palmtree.
However, the farmers will never overuse this kind of supplementary production, as it might cause the roots of the areca palm-tree to be broken, thus limiting their efficacity.
Quảng Ngãi is an area well-known to many people about the question of setting up orchards and planting areca palm-trees. Upon setting up an orchard, one might plant up to hundreds of areca palm-tree, such as the ones at Nghĩa Thành, Tư Nghĩa, Mộc Đức, in the town of Quảng Ngãi and at a few districts in the mountainous region, such as Sơn Tây, Sơn Hà2…
“The story of areca-nut and betel” is a type of old tale that takes part in the treasure of Vietnamese old tales. From a mystical angle, one has built the tragic love story of the Cao brothers, bearing the seal of the matrimonial regime involving one husband and one wife, and has explained the custom of chewing betel, and using areca-nut and betel in the marriage.
The areca-nut and the betel have also become a type of offering that cannot be omitted in all our people’s festive ceremonials as: “A betel quid starts the ball rolling.” (Fig.3). The areca palm-tree, with its straight and high-reaching silhouette, constitutes the symbol of the upright man.
NOTE:
1 Associate Professor HUNG NGUYEN MANH, Doctor of Phylosophy in History.
2 According to N.V.T – The areca palmtree at Quảng Ngãi – Cultural monthly review – Đinh Sửu Spring 1997 – P. 36, 43.
BAN TU THU
01 /2020
NOTE:
◊ Source: Vietnamese Lunar New Year – Major Festival – Asso. Prof. HUNG NGUYEN MANH, Doctor of Phylosophy in History.
◊ Bold text and sepia images has been set by Ban Tu Thu – thanhdiavietnamhoc.com
SEE ALSO:
◊ From Sketches in early 20th century to traditional rituals and festival.
◊ Signification of the term “Tết”
◊ Concerns of PROVIDENT PEOPLE – Concerns for KITCHEN and CAKES
◊ Vietnam Lunar New Year – vi-VersiGoo
◊ etc.