Tet Festival was a success! Check out Daily Bruin’s video here!

Tết Nguyên Đán, more commonly known by its shortened name Tết, is the most important and popular holiday and festival in Vietnam. It is the Vietnamese New Year which is based on the Chinese calendar, a lunisolar calendar. The name Tết Nguyên Đán is Sino-Vietnamese for Feast of the First Morning, derived from the Hán nôm characters 節元旦.

Tết is celebrated on the same day as the Chinese New Year though exceptions arise due to the one-hour time difference between Hanoi and Beijing. Tết shares many of the same customs of its Chinese counterpart. It is celebrated from the first day of the first month of the Chinese calendar (around late January or early February) until at least the third day.

Many Vietnamese prepare for Tết by cooking special holiday foods and cleaning the house. On Tết, Vietnamese visit their families and temples, forgetting about the troubles of the past year and hoping for a better upcoming year. Tết traditionally marks the coming of Spring, so Spring (Xuân) is sometimes used interchangeably with Tết in Vietnamese.

For the past couple of years, in an effort to keep the Vietnamese spirit alive at UCLA, VNLC has hosted an on-campus Tết Festival Celebration. Tết at UCLA consists of talent performances, martial arts, fashion shows, skits and lots of Vietnamese food.

The festival is scheduled for January 29th. Make sure to keep the date open!

E-mail Christina H. Nguyen (christina_nguyen21@yahoo.com) or Cherry To (cherryto_1491@yahoo.com) for more information.

Watch last year’s Tet Orientation video to learn more: http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=442179422259&oid=115559035172645

See the recording of our 2010 Tết Festival here!