All’s Quiet as Vietnam Rings In New Year

Monday night, in millions of homes across Vietnam, families took their last baths of the year, to wash off the dirt of past misfortune, and held send-off ceremonies for the kitchen gods who ascend to heaven to give their annual report to the Jade Emperor on the moral conduct of household members.

And when Vietnam awoke today, the land seemed to have been abandoned. City streets were deserted. Every shop was closed. No farmers or water buffalo worked the rice paddies.

To find this industrious, bustling country so suddenly quiet is an odd experience, considering that shopkeepers routinely work 14 to 16 hours a day, seven days a week, and that farmers never take a day off.

But today is the start of Tet, or the Chinese Lunar New Year, heralding the start of spring, when heaven and earth are in harmony. It is the country’s most joyful happening, a time when Vietnamese both here and abroad feel a spiritual obligation to be at home with their families. It is virtually the only time all year that the Vietnamese stop working long enough to enjoy the fruits of their labors.

To many Americans, Tet is a military offensive, not a holiday. And indeed, last year, on the 30th anniversary of Communist attacks on cities in what was then South Vietnam, even the government-controlled press did a considerable amount of reminiscing about the event.

This year, there has been not a word, as the war continues to fade from the consciousness of the 77 million Vietnamese, half of whom were born after the Americans fled Saigon in 1975. The Communist government’s priority today is economic development and political stability, not the rehashing of past military battles.

According to government statistics, more than 100,000 overseas Vietnamese--or one of every 20 Vietnamese who live abroad, primarily in the United States, Australia and France--have returned home for Tet. In addition, the government says, overseas Vietnamese have sent $18 million to their families here for the holiday.

For days leading up to Tet, it was all but impossible to find a seat on any flight to Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh City, as Saigon is now known. The three-times-a-day train between the two cities was so packed that railroad authorities had to add extra carriages. And streets were shoulder to shoulder with Tet shoppers--whose spending is monitored by the government to gauge consumer confidence, in the same way Christmas sales in the United States are considered a measure of future economic trends.

In the dark economic days of little more than a decade ago, a cake of soap or a jar of shampoo was a precious Tet gift. But now, with Vietnam moving into a free-market economy, such items are commonplace, and gifts this year are more likely to be wine, imported candy or peach and kumquat trees--the local equivalent of Christmas trees--which shoppers have brought home precariously strapped on the backs of their bicycles and motor scooters.

For the Vietnamese, Tet is Christmas, New Year’s and Thanksgiving wrapped into one. Rather than being a raucous occasion, it is a time to pay homage to deceased ancestors, gather quietly with family and friends, and enjoy special Tet foods such as banh chung, sticky rice stuffed with pork and egg and wrapped in a banana leaf.

Every household waits nervously on Tet to see who its first visitor of the new year will be. If it’s someone who has known misfortune in the old year--such as losing a job, suffering a death in the family, or ill health--the hosts believe they can be cursed with bad luck throughout the year. Some families are so superstitious that they arrange their “first-footing” visitor far in advance to ensure omens of good luck.

The Vietnamese say the stars are properly aligned to make this, the Year of the Cat, a period of prosperity and good fortune. (The Chinese recognize this as the Year of the Rabbit.) It may be no coincidence that 1975, when the war ended and Vietnam’s first era of peace in 150 years began, also was a Year of the Cat.