Lunar New Year Is Time to Bond With the Family

Lan Khanh Duong flew in from Australia to help clean her aunt’s kitchen in Irvine. Duong swiftly scrubbed the sinks and swept every nook and corner before the clock struck midnight one night during the week preceding the lunar New Year.

“Tet is all about spending time with family, no matter what we’re doing together,” said Duong, 22, who made a rare visit from Sydney to celebrate the holiday, which falls on Wednesday. “We bond now so the family remains close throughout the year.”

Duong is among the swell of Vietnamese American tourists converging on Orange County this week to celebrate Tet, regarded as the most important cultural and religious holiday for the Vietnamese, Chinese and some Koreans. It’s probably best compared to Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s, all rolled into one.

“We take it very seriously,” said Dave Nguyen, director of tourism at the Vietnamese American Chamber of Commerce in Westminster. “It’s a time to be with families . . . no matter which part of the world you live in.”

Orange County’s Little Saigon remains the hottest spot in America for the Vietnamese to congregate for Tet. The business and cultural hub is home to more than 3,000 shops and the epicenter of the largest Vietnamese community outside Vietnam.

Business owners and Tet organizers are geared up for what’s expected to be the most hectic and festive lunar new year celebration yet in Orange County. The Year of the Snake is being ushered in with colorful foods, a cultural parade and two festivals: one this weekend at the Westminster Civic Center, and a three-day festival that begins Friday at Garden Grove Park in Garden Grove. Westminster’s is the biggest such festival in the nation.

“When you say Little Saigon, everyone over here knows what it is,” said Oanh Pham, 47, president of the Vietnamese community of Minnesota, where an estimated 22,000 Vietnamese Americans reside. “It is the Vietnamese capital in the United States known to have large Tet celebrations.”

Last year, just one of Orange County’s two main Tet festivals attracted at least 60,000 people. By comparison, a crowd of about 50,000 attended the Tet festival in San Jose, which is home to the second-largest Vietnamese community in the nation. Houston attracted an estimated 25,000 to its festival; about 2,000 people attended Minnesota festivities.

Duong, who has seen her aunt only twice in two decades, shopped for fruits, sesame candies and fake paper clothes and gold. Last Wednesday, she gathered with friends and other relatives for a feast and ceremony to honor Ong Tao--the kitchen god--with prayers, lighted incense and offerings of food.

Legend has it that one week before Tet, the chief guardian spirit of the hearth returns to heaven to report on the family’s activities of the past year, and they get rewarded or punished for their deeds.

Families traditionally clean the kitchen and leave offerings of special foods at the altar. They also burn sacrificial gold papers and offer carp as transportation for the spirit’s journey to heaven.

Tet, also known as Tet Nguyen Dan, is the arrival of spring and a time for forgiveness, reunion, remembrance and renewal. Elders give children li xi, or lucky money, in red envelopes, in exchange for wishes of luck, prosperity and good health.

Ancestors are paid homage and honored with offerings of rice cakes, fruits and candies at alters.

“It’s a special family gathering and it’s a rare occasion, because in America, families are too busy working to survive,” said Vivian Tran, 18, of Costa Mesa. “We don’t have any other Vietnamese holidays in America.”