Before last week, I knew very little about the Vietnamese New Year celebration.
Tết is the first day of the Lunar calendar and does not go by the calendar that the United States uses. One thing that surprised me the most was the significant of different flowers to the festival. Peach blossoms play a big role and symbolizes elegance and modesty. In fact, there is only one period of time per year in which there is a flower market to buy and sell these flowers. That is so intense!
But even more intense is all the activities that go on during this celebration. I have been to Vietnam before but never during New Years. The video showcased an amazing fireworks display which I would really love to witness. The streets were also flooded with eager customers to purchase toys, foods, small fireworks, and all sorts of other gizmo and gadgets. If I had to the chance to shop in Vietnam now, there's no doubt that I would put my new knowledge of haggling, that we learnt in class, to the test! I would become a haggling master and then set out to buy 150 Pokemon items for much cheaper than ticketed price!
Next, the video enlightened me on the many other cultures that celebrate the Lunar New Year as well. However, they all celebrate it at least a little bit differently. They have different foods, celebration activities, and drinking costumes. Some foods are made to symbolize good energy sources for warriors; Dance and song were at one time used to boost moral of troops.
But one aspect that I didn't see the video go into too much detail of was the dragon or unicorn dance. That dance is one of my most favorite things to watch because it reminds me of great times when I was younger. Back in the good old days, I use to tease my little sister a lot. One of the occasions was when our family went to some Vietnamese event in Grand Rapids. The entire days before the event I would tell my sister about how a deadly dragon was spawning around this time of year. It would be big- VERY BIG. Big enough to devour whole human bodies. It usually is calm but when there is a lot of noise, such as clunking wood or loud instruments, it would become enraged. My sister totally ate this up, but in her defense, this was when she was still afraid of vacuums.
Come the day of the event, of course there was a team of dragon dancers performing. My sister was terrified and was sobbing while she buried her face in my moms arms. Then when the dragon dance team came around to take donations through the dragons mouth, she screamed. It was a great time for me. :)
All in all, I would love to visit Vietnam sometime to experience the cultural event as a whole and in person. Class field trip anyone? ^-^