Tet Holiday Experiences in Hoi An Ancient Town! Unforgettable!

Tet Holiday or Vietnamese Lunar New Year is the most important celebration in Vietnam. As a result of being calculated by the lunar calendar, Tet is usually later than New Year's Day and occurs at the end of January in the Spring. As you all know, there are three main regions of Vietnam with different traditions and customs. And the ways they enjoy the Tet holiday are also various. 

What is the Tet Holiday? 

Tet Holiday is concerned to be the biggest, happiest and festival in Vietnam. As the longest public holiday in Vietnam, Tet is a wonderful time for people living far from here to look forward and gather together because they often have one week off to celebrate the festival. For Vietnamese people, Tet is the days of love, hope, and luck. Whenever I think about Vietnam, “TET” is a familiar word to Vietnamese people because everyone knows that their relatives are waiting for their return. The Tet’s atmosphere is only warm and cozy when all members of their family stay and talk together! Tet Holiday 2020 is on January 25th, 2020 (New Year’s Eve is the previous day).

What should the foreign do during Tet Holiday in Hoi An?  

Celebrate Tet on the town streets

You should come here and enjoy the festival atmosphere. It’s a great time to explore Vietnamese culture and join traditional activities. Visiting Hoi An this time, you will see a bustling city, becoming increasingly more vivid. The streets were decorated with plenty of paper lanterns, trees, and flowers such as apricot or peach blossom, daisy flowers, kumquat trees,...  Locals also proudly hang their flags outside of their houses on these special days. Moreover, they clean their houses, festoon streets and cook various delicious food with the hope that they will achieve wealth, happiness and prosperity in the following New Year. 

Don’t miss The New Year’s Eve 

Celebrating Tet with local people has always been an unforgettable experience for tourists, especially on New Year’s Eve. The old town will close to motorized traffic and switches off its light. At that time, Hoi An was an absolutely stunning town especially with multi-colored and shaped lanterns in the streets and flickering candlelight. You can see a lot of people releasing their lanterns on the river to make a wish for the New Year. Or they enjoy the peaceful and marvelous views by taking a sampan ride on the river. This is not only a great way to grab a bit of space from the crowds but also a great way to enjoy the festival. 

The highlights will be a lion dance performance on the streets and inviting tourists to join the holiday. Then, at the sacred moment of transferring from the old year to the new year, there will be fireworks lighting up the sky at the public places. Venues may be changed every year depending on availability every year. 

Experience traditional customs during Tet

The locals place offering flowers, fruits, Chung cake- sticky rice cake wrapped in banana leaves, some candies and other cake on New Year’s Eve. Then they burn offering papers and incense to make a wish and welcome to a greater year coming. In the first moments of the New Year’s morning, family members will be together to drink cups of hot tea, enjoy sweet cake and different kinds of seeds( such as sunflower seeds, watermelon seeds, etc). Children will wish grandparents first, then parents and other people according to the family hierarchy. Exchanging Tet wishes and giving of “Red envelopes” containing Lucky money to each other. 

Join traditional activities

To maintain Tet tradition and serve tourists and local people, Hoi An ancient town, the atmosphere in parts of this small, animated with traditional folk games of Vietnamese taking place such as Bai Choi, lion dance, human chess, tug of war, racing boat, etc. Most of the traditional folk games were only seen in old documentaries and childhood memories of many locals. But now all the people have the chance to try and have fun. Don’t miss this amazing opportunity to join a great fun and explore Vietnamese culture, these folk games and arts.

Visit temples and pagodas in Tet

Traditionally, during the first three days of The Lunar New Year, everyone goes to pagodas and temples to burn incense and pray for health, happiness, and prosperity, etc no matter how busy they are. Moreover, the best way to enjoy spring is wishing with your family. Then people will take a picture to capture these happy moments.

Tips: There are some taboos which you should not do. The first thing that does not say bad things during the Tet holiday. People always make wishes for others, not debate them. The second thing is not to wear black or white clothes because it is considered to be an unlucky sign. Last but not least, do not sweep the house in Tet Holiday because people believe that you are sweeping all luck and money out of their house. 

Wishing you a wonderful New Year in Hoi An!