Lucky New Year

Deep into the night, Loan Dao’s family used to huddle in the kitchen around their fire, vigilant about stoking the wood-burning flames that slowly cooked the banh chung.

The traditional mung bean cake, carefully wrapped in banana leaves, took at least 10 hours to cook, but making it was a beloved New Year’s ritual for the whole family, as they stayed up laughing and sharing stories till dawn.

Though she traded a village in Vietnam for a new home in the United States seven years ago, Dao, 64, of Westminster, still takes painstaking care to honor the ancient rituals and customs surrounding Tet, the Vietnamese celebration of the Lunar New Year.

“I’ll be making banh chung the way I always do. We still follow the old ways,” Dao said, carting bags of groceries out of a Little Saigon supermarket. “Besides, it tastes better when you make your own.”

Dao joins hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese and Chinese Americans in Southern California as they prepare to celebrate the new year, which this year falls on Tuesday.

For the Chinese, Vietnamese and some Koreans, it’s the most important cultural and religious holiday. In all cultures it is marked with a heavy emphasis on family and friends.

There are some differences in the way the Chinese and Vietnamese commemorate the day, but for the most part, similar traditions prevail. For example, for the Vietnamese, this is the year of the cat; for the Chinese, it’s the year of the rabbit or hare. Both animals have the same characteristics, which are said to set the tone for the year. (For more about the zodiac, see chart at right.)

In both cultures, festivities take place before and after the date of the new moon.

“January and February is our holiday season,” said professor Son Kim Vo, coordinator of the Intercultural Development Center at Cal State Fullerton. Vo celebrates Tet with his family.

“It’s a time for thanksgiving, when children pay respects to parents and elders. It’s also a time for family reunions, not just among the living relatives but those who have passed away. On New Year’s Eve, there is a big feast to welcome home the souls of our ancestors.”

Making Old Custom a Public Event

Surprisingly, Tet was not officially celebrated by Vietnamese Americans until the ‘80s. Beginning in 1975, the handful of refugees scattered throughout Orange County would come together only on April 30, to commemorate the day South Vietnam fell to Communist North Vietnamese troops, said Yen Do, editor of the Westminster-based Nguoi Viet, the largest Vietnamese daily in the United States.

“People would drive out to the ocean and face westward, toward home. They would light incense. They would remember and cry. But no one gathered for happier reasons,” Do said.

In 1980 the community decided to publicly celebrate the holiday. The first Tet festival, in 1981, was held on the corner of Hoover Street and Westminster Boulevard in Westminster, Do remembered.

Since then, Tet has come into its own. With the steady growth of the Vietnamese American community in Orange County over the last two decades, mainstream awareness about the holiday has also increased, Do said.

“In American newspapers, they talk about Tet the way they talk about Hanukkah--very naturally. It’s become a part of the vocabulary. People do not associate it with the war and the Tet Offensive. Now they understand it’s about New Year’s,” he said.

Throughout the months of January and February, Little Saigon is transformed into a hub of activity as thousands of out-of-state visitors make their way to the business district in Westminster.

Honoring a strong tradition of returning home for Tet, they come from other states and other countries to see their families and to celebrate.

With 200,000 Vietnamese in Orange County--the largest Vietnamese population outside Vietnam and part of an estimated 300,000 throughout Southern California--Little Saigon serves as the de facto capital for the emigres. This year, the local Vietnamese community is hosting four festivals and a parade. (For a list of events, see Page 6.)

Shops bustle with customers searching for last-minute specialty foods and gifts. Vendors hawk orchids, cherry blossoms and hoa mai, the delicate yellow flower that represents good luck.

Open-air stalls set up in shopping-center parking lots are piled high with red-cellophane wrapped gifts of teas, candies and dried fruits. Traditional sweets of coconut strips, candied ginger and sugar-coated lotus seeds are sold in bright red candy containers; red is considered a lucky color.

“This time of year brings back the nostalgia,” said Vo, who also teaches Vietnamese culture and language at Coastline Community College in Fountain Valley.

“The community has tried to restore the spirit of New Year’s the way it is celebrated in Vietnam. They want to carry on the traditions. You can see it in Little Saigon. Every radio program talks about Tet. It’s a way for people to connect with Vietnam.”

Tuyen Nguyen, 72, of Corona agrees, saying wistfully, “It’s the one time I miss Vietnam the most.”

Sharing Rituals With the Family

Nguyen, who arrived in the United States with his wife and five children in 1991, carefully follows all the new year rituals. In his household, the preparation for Tet begins in January. A week before New Year’s, his family gathers for a feast to send off Ong Tao, the kitchen god and the spirit of the hearth. Vietnamese believe that Ong Tao reports the family’s activities to heaven, and that then they are rewarded or punished for their deeds.

On New Year’s Eve, the family will have a feast to welcome home relatives as well as the spirits of ancestors. Nguyen will make sure he sprinkles rice and salt on his yard, to scare away the evil spirits. At midnight, the family goes to temple.

On New Year’s Day, Nguyen’s children stand before him to make their annual wishes for his longevity and prosperity. In turn, he will give li xi, lucky money, to them in red envelopes.

Though all his children have jobs or attend school, Nguyen said they still make the effort to celebrate New Year’s the old-fashioned way.

“I don’t want them to forget,” he said. “We live in America, but we are still Vietnamese.”

Changing With the Generations

Most Vietnamese Americans find that living in the United States has made it more difficult to maintain the multitude of rituals that were followed in their ancestral land, Cal State Fullerton’s Vo said. They end up adapting what they like, dropping what they don’t.

For example, Vo said, her niece explains to her children that Tet is a time for family. But she chooses not to follow many of the beliefs, such as the ban on housecleaning on New Year’s Day. (Some people believe it means sweeping away the family’s good fortune.)

“We continue to teach our children about Tet,” Vo said. “However, with every generation, we are losing a little tradition.”

The changes aren’t necessarily bad, says Giang Nguyen, 29, of Anaheim, who has spent half his life in the U.S. and half in Vietnam.

“Tet is more abbreviated here, because people have to wait until the weekends, when it’s convenient to celebrate. People buy their banh chung instead of making it, because it’s more convenient,” he said.

“But I think we still have the spirit, the understanding about what Tet really means. And that’s what’s really important.”

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Tini Tran can be reached at (714) 966-5635 and tini.tran@latimes.com

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ABOUT THE ZODIAC

The Asian zodiac follows a lunar calendar and has a 12-year cycle. A different animal represents each year with different characteristics said to influence the year’s events.

In general Chinese and Vietnamese follow the same calendar but when the Chinese celebrate the year of the ox, the Vietnamese celebrate the water buffalo. The Chinese sheep/ram corresponds to the Vietnamese goat. Feb. 16 1999 is the year of the cat (Vietnamese) and the rabbit (Chinese) who share characteristics.

THE ZODIAC

According to legend, the original zodiac was established by Buddha when he tried to restore order to the world’s affairs. He invited all of the animal kingdom to a conference, but only 12 came. The order in which they arrived, from rat to pig, marks the sequence in which they occur on the zodiac.

ANIMAL CHARACTERISTICS

The U.S. Post Office has issued a commemorative stamp for the year of the rabbit who is social and diplomatic. Other animal characteristics: rat: clever, charming; ox/water buffalo: hard-working, reliable; tiger: confident, enthusiastic; dragon: dynamic, resourceful; snake: intuitive, shrewd; horse: independent, trustworthy; sheep/goat: artistic, gentle; monkey: energetic, fun-loving; rooster: observant, straightforward; dog: honest, loyal; pig: tolerant, sincere.

REFLECTIONS

Many customs and traditions are common, but each family celebrates in its own way. Here are some reminiscences on Tet.

When I was a child, we would always have two pigs for Tet. One pig we killed a week before New Year’s to make the stuffing for banh chung (mung bean cake wrapped in banana leaves). Every family would make its own. The other pig we prepared for New Year’s Eve dinner. Everyone, no matter how poor they were all year, would save up so they would have a plentiful new year. You couldn’t starve on Tet. My mother would spend time buying gifts we could send to relatives in the countryside. Every year, we would send two boxes of food and gifts to my mother’s relatives and two boxes for my father’s relatives. No one would be forgotten.

Canh Trinh, 73, retired, Garden Grove

Tet is about good food, money and family. Sometimes we go to our uncle’s house to eat. All the kids get lucky money (li xi). You wish the grown-ups a happy New Year, and they give you money. Last year, I got $5. Sometimes you get presents too. It’s like Christmas. I spend my money on candy and toys, but mostly I have to give it to my mom. She doesn’t let me keep too much money.

Minh Quang Pham, 9, student, Anaheim

I’ve lived half my life in Vietnam and half my life in the United States, but I have always celebrated Tet. It’s just like Thanksgiving. My mother cooks all this food, and we get together with my brother and sister’s family. It’s a big feast. My mom still makes the banh chung (the mung bean cake wrapped in banana leaves) herself. She makes them as gifts for people. She has a lot of friends here, and she spends time making 10 to 15 of them to give. You can buy it at the market, but if she buys it, it’s not a real gift.

Dave Nguyen, 49, small-business owner, Westminster

On the first day of the new year, I have to call my parents in Vietnam and wish them a happy and prosperous new year. I do it every year. We also take the kids to visit relatives and take them to the Tet festival. People try and make the holiday just like at home, but it still doesn’t feel the same as in Vietnam. We’ve dropped a lot of the traditional customs--many of them are just superstitions. We follow American ways a bit more, but we still like the idea of visiting with friends and families for the holidays.

Ly Kim Chan, 43, homemaker, Anaheim

Tet is our biggest holiday. The family gets together and celebrates. We invite our cousins to come over, and we all go to temple together in the morning on the first day of the new year. We make a big deal out of it. We all dress up and go to pray. Everyone has to do it. We also give the adults a greeting. If you say something nice, they give you a red envelope of lucky money. We go visit relatives if they’re far away. It’s also fun to help cook. We have all different kinds of food. And we also play cards for good luck. It’s like a big party.

Trang Trieu, 14, student, Santa Ana