2011 Tet Celebration – Year of the Rabbit
January 12th, 2011What is Tet? Tet is celebrated in Vietnam and also known as the Lunar New Year.
Happy Lunar New Year
The Lunar New Year falls between the end of January and early February; this year it’s on Feb. 3 and marks the beginning of the Year of the Cat (Vietnam) or Year of the Rabbit (China). Tet is like Thanksgiving, Christmas, Fourth of July, Mother’s and Father’s days, and your birthday all rolled into one fabulous holiday. It’s a holiday for family gatherings and to ăn Tết, literally meaning “Tet eating” — food is an important part of the celebration, symbolizing good fortune in the new year.
One festival that my two boys look forward to around this time of year is Tet in Portland. Everyone loves a lion dance and li xi (red money envelopes). According to tradition, if you feed the lion with your li xi it will bring good luck all year. While feeding the lion, the boys like to pretend that their arms are being bitten off and think it’s cute. This year’s festival will be held on Saturday, Feb. 5, at the Oregon Convention Center with food vendors, music, cultural performances and the Miss Ao Dai Pageant.
Tet in Portland at OCC
At Lan Su Chinese Garden, the Chinese New Year will be celebrated Feb. 3-17. On the 17th, I plan to attend the Lantern Viewing, when 300 lanterns will set the garden aglow in this special after-hours event. It’s going to be an enlightening evening!
In my preparations for Tet, I shop at Fubonn in Southeast Portland to get all the traditional Vietnamese goodies like banh chung, New Year candies called Mứt Tết, decorations and li xi. It’s a great Asian grocery story with fresh produce, seafood, and many hard-to-find dry ingredients, like glutinous rice flour, dry shrimp, bamboo shoots, etc. Maybe I’ll make candied lotus seeds this year.
Chúc mừng năm mới. Wishing everyone a prosperous and happy new year in 2011!
Tags: asian, celebration, chinese, festival, Holiday, new year, tet, vietnamese
January 25th, 2011 at 1:22 am
For Vietnamese it’s the year of the Cat. For some reasons, it’s the only animal that is different from the Chinese.
February 2nd, 2011 at 11:26 am
hello chi,
by any chance chi let em know whether chua o Portland co le don giao thua tonight? i am new in the area and want to find out Vietnamese community activity.
Cam on chi nhieu
February 4th, 2011 at 6:03 pm
Hi Em,
There are several Vietnamese Buddhist temples in Portland holding Tet celebrations tonight and all weekend. Two that I know of are:
Nam-Quang Temple
3337 Northeast 148th Avenue, Portland
(503) 254-0875
Ngoc Son Buhdist Temple
8318 Southeast Harney Street, Portland
(503) 771-1985
Good luck and welcome to Portland! Chi chuc em nam moi tien vo nhu nuoc, suc khoe doi dao,van su nhu!