DIA Blog 013 - The Beautiful and Ugly Side of Tet in Vietnam by Noogie

by Noogie

Tet (Vietnam's Lunar New Year) came and went by in a blink of an eye. Tet is a holiday that celebrates starting a new year, which essentially means starting anew. You forget about the past year and start the new year fresh and clean. 

 Tet is a beautiful holiday in Vietnam because it brings families together and enriches the tradition that the culture is built upon. 

 

However, it's not all sunny. There are some beautiful and ugly sides to the Tet holiday. After letting the holiday pass, it was a good time to reflect on the holiday and my experiences and to share to you readers "The Beautiful and Ugly Side of Tet in Vietnam"
 

Family 

Beautiful - Bringing all the families together to celebrate Tet is an amazing experience. Usually, families go back to visit their great-grandparent's hometown and meet all the descendants from their bloodline. It is a beautiful experience to learn the history of one's family, their place within the family tree, and to meet all of their cousins and distant cousins that they never knew existed.
 

Ugly - However, bringing that many family members together easily stirs up the drama, judging, constant comparing, and gossiping. Trust me, I was in the house all day... I saw the way it went down on both the men and women sides of the conversation. Even though it's all love and family, there was still so much negativity to it all. 

It started off as genuine happiness when first meeting everybody but it eventually led to behind the back talking and drama. 

Totally not a fan of people of the two-face encounters and constantly being judged or judging others. Worry about your own life and move on.
 

Tradition

 
Beautiful - It's great to see traditions still carried on from generation to generation on what should be done during the holidays. 

It connects you to the past and really makes you feel micro in the grand scheme of life. 

Kids will experience what the grandparents experienced, as well as eating the same foods.

Ugly - On the flip side... tradition is tradition which means you'll be doing the same thing year in and year out: eating the same dishes, meeting the same people, and going through the same motions you do on a yearly basis. Also, everything changes when you get older so instead of receiving lucky money during the holiday, you'll be the one handing them out putting you in a loss instead of profit.
 

Cleansing

 
Beautiful - Before the Lunar New Year officially starts, you got to clean the house from top to bottom as a way to start the new year fresh. It gives you time to reflect on what you did but also gives you the mindset about making sure next year you'll be doing the right things for yourself, your family, and your home. 

Ugly - Unfortunately, cleaning the entire house is exhausting. Since I'm still "young" I had to personally do most of the grunt work while people just sat back and barked commands and did the minimum. Also, the bigger the house, the more there is to clean. 

I mean, it's a good tradition to have since you'll go through old stuff and toss away what's unnecessary as you'll know it's not needed moving forward. 

Some households will never go through the process and continually let the trash pile up and eventually not want to clean it since it looks like a mountain to climb to get it done. If it was a truly shared effort, there would be less ugliness to this part about Tet.
 

Food and Drank

Beautiful - There is no shortage of good food and drinks during Tet. I mean people were already celebrating after Christmas ended and right up until Tet but when Tet actually arrives, they kick the food and alcohol into another gear and keep going. 

If good Vietnamese food and lots of alcohol is your thing... then you need to make sure you're around Vietnam during Tet. 

 
Ugly - However, if you have your limits on food and alcohol then this can become a pain to deal with. There is just so much food and alcohol going around during Tet. You might be stuffing yourself with food and alcohol twice a day on a daily basis for the first few days of Tet. If you turn down food or alcohol down in the presence of others, especially the host, then they almost feel like you disrespecting them. So what do you do? You man the fuck up and keep going even though you are already so stuffed that you're about to vomit. But it's just not right to consume that much constantly and consistently. I think even if you're a glutton for food and alcohol, what happens during Tet is a bit much.
 

Weather
Beautiful - Here's one thing with no ugliness to it and it's the weather. It's the best season to be in Vietnam. No rain and not too hot or humid which is PERFECT.

Travel

 
Ugly - But here's one thing that isn't beautiful whatsoever... traveling. It is downright awful to travel in and out of the city. Well depending on the direction you're going. 

For Tet, people go back to their hometowns and celebrate with the family and the majority of the people's hometown is not Ho Chi Minh City. 

So it feels like 90% of the population of the city is all migrating out of town before Tet and back into town a few days after Tet. The traffic is absolutely horrendous during this time. There are massive delays and traffic jams in every way possible. I heard people who didn't move more than 1 kilometer in a 4-hour span because traffic was so bad.

Well, there you have it. These are the beautiful and ugly things for each category that I observed during my Tet holiday.

Hope you enjoyed the post!