Vietnamese New Year

There are many similarities yet differences between Vietnamese new year practices and Korean new year practices. I was surprised to find different animals occupying the lunar calendar. In the Korean lunar calendar, there is no year of the "cat."

Compared to the Korean animal calendar, Vietnamese animal calendar does not have sheep, rabbit, and boar. The ox from the Korean calendar can be argued to be equivalent to water buffalo in Vietnamese animal calendar. I am glad snake is in both, which is my animal year.

Other similar elements that I noticed are the worshipping of ancestors. Both Koreans and Vietnamese prepare lots of food for the ancestors and families gather together to pray to the ancestors. But there is a distinct difference in worshipping the ancestors. Korean families usually line up and do a full bow, with knees knelt and head to the ground. The worshipping that I saw of the Vietnamese was people worshipping at their own pace without having to do a full bow with knees knelt and head to the ground. From the videos that we saw about Tet during class, I also did not see any children participating in the worshipping to ancestors. I wonder if the practice is limited to only the adults, or if there is an order where the adults pray first like the way Koreans do their ancestor worshipping.

The amount of decoration put into celebrating the new year in Vietnam is very impressive. The countless numbers of trees and flowers bought to decorate the houses amaze me.

The Kitchen God seems to be something unique for Vietnam as well along with the practice of catching fish and setting them free again. It is very interesting to compare how the new year is celebrated in Korea and Vietnam and understand the unique qualities of each country's celebration despite the popular assumption that they are the same.