Does your family have any unique traditions?
Every year my family celebrates Lunar New Year in Vietnam instead of Taiwan because we’ve lived there for years. Vietnamese New Year, Tet, is held on the same day as Chinese New Year due to following the same lunar calendar.
I would love to share what I’ve experienced during Tet in Vietnam.
New Year’s Eve
In my family, we don’t eat reunion dinner on New Year’s Eve; instead, we stay up late to wait for the first day of the new year to pray for health, safety, and luck by burning the special paper. The next day morning, we also get up early to go to the temple to pray.
Chinese New Year’s Day
On the Chinese New Year’s Day, my mom doesn’t allow us to eat meat, because she thinks we should do good things on the first day as a way to start the new year. Besides, my mom is a vegetarian and a Buddhist.
Decoration
We buy flowers to decorate our home such as chrysanthemums or pot marigold by putting them into pots in front of the house. We also buy Ochna integerrima whose name has the meaning of luck in Vietnamese to decorate the living room.
To sum up, I’m glad that I have a chance to celebrate Lunar New Year in a different country. It is a unique experience for me.
