Tet Holiday is the biggest annual celebration of Vietnam in the first days of lunar New Year. During these days, people welcome a new coming year with good health, lucks and success. Tet holiday is very special for Vietnamese families to reunite and celebrate together.

The preparation for Tet holiday is taken place very soon because it requires many steps. All members of families clean and redecorate their houses together. Then, they buy food, drink such as cookies, sweets, candied fruit, melon seeds...to offer their guests and to store because in this occasion, many shops are closed. A branch of peach flower or a kumquat tree cannot be absent from every home during these special days. Children are the most eager, as their parents will buy them new clothes. In addition to buying things, many Vietnamese families make Chung cake, pickled onion, frozen meat, which are our country's traditional food on Tet holiday. We decorate ancestral altars with a five-fruit tray, vegetables, sweets, and flowers.

In the last day of the previous year, people become more excited as they feel that the New Year is very near to them. Everybody all waits for the sacred moment when the clock points 0 am and fireworks light up everywhere to wish for health, lucks and happiness in the next year. Streets are extremely crowded. On contrary, in the first morning of the year, everything seems peaceful and quiet as people want to sleep longer to enjoy the moment with their cozy family. However, there are some families getting up early to come back to their hometown to visit their ancestors' graves and relatives. From noon on, everybody go to their neighbors' houses to wish them a happy new year. Children in new clothes are very excited, as they will get lucky money from adults.

There are many activities to welcome new coming spring in this occasion. Children usually take up pens to write their first essay, hoping for good results in school. In spring festivals, everyone especially the young takes part in the traditional games such as rollercoaster, tug of war, cooking rice, cock fighting etc. to express their happiness while farmers wish for bumper crops. Women often go to pagodas to show Buddha their hearts and wish their families good things and power to avoid bad lucks. During the first days of New Year, Vietnamese people do things that are supposed to be good for themselves and their loved ones such as wearing red clothes, buying salt, taking chance or praying... and avoid saying taboos(related to death, breaking...). Each region in Vietnam has it own customs to celebrate Tet, which are very special and unique.

"Tet" is the word that is very familiar to Vietnamese people whenever we think about our country. This is the time for family reunion, for festivals, and for people to give love to their loved one. As for me, I enjoy the warm and cozy Tet's atmosphere when all members of my family stay and talk together.

                                                               (The end)

You know the village has always been known to be a place of peace and quiet. The scattered houses among hundreds of plants and trees at once indicate the lack of activity in the village.

The workers in the village leave their homes early in the morning to work in the plantations or towns nearby. Some have their own plantations, and some make some articles in their homes to sell them in the towns. A few of the villagers, including women, go out to catch fish in the streams and rivers found in the village. Though the people of the village do not usually earn much, yet they seem to be contented. There are many farmers working very hard. They do from dawn to dusk, but their cheerful, optimistic and loving spirit never makes them tired. They do very hard work in the field. The grain we eat is due to the sweat of the peasants, so we must cherish the grain of rice. Vietnam has folk songs about farmers as follows:

“ Cày đồng đang buổi ban trưa,

Mồ hôi đổ xuống như mưa ruộng cày.

Ai ơi bưng bát cơm đầy,

Dẻo thơm một hạt đắng cay muôn phần.”

In the afternoon, most of the villagers are at home. Some of them take a nap after lunch; Some work in their small gardens, and some visit the small shops in the village. In various parts of the village children may be seen playing the popular games of the village. Occasionally, a cyclist passes by.

Then, in the evening, the villagers meet one another. Some play cards and other types of games peculiar to the village. Some talk about the day's incidents in the village, and those whose minds go beyond the village to discuss world events.

In almost every village there is a headman whose duty is to settle quarrels among the villagers and maintain peace in the village. Whenever there is a dispute, the villagers go to the headman who is held in such an esteem that his word has the force or law. In this way the villagers have developed their own simple laws, and the crimes of cities are almost unknown to the people of the village.

During a festival, the whole village is alive with activities. Everyone is in a happy mood and plays his part to make a festival a success. This is the time for the men, women and children of the village to wear their best clothes and the village is full of color. These simple ways of life in the village, however, must soon change. Progress in science and education has already begun to affect the outlook of the people in the village, and hundreds are leaving the village to seek their fortunes in the towns and cities.