The Tet is the first day of the Vietnamese New Year and is usually celebrated on the same day as Chinese New Year, as Vietnam and China use the same lunar-solar calendar. It is the first day of the lunar year and thus does not fall on the same date every year (between mid-January and mid-February).

The Tet is the first day of the Vietnamese New Year and is usually celebrated on the same day as Chinese New Year, as Vietnam and China use the same lunar-solar calendar.  It is the first day of the lunar year and thus does not fall on the same date every year (between mid-January and mid-February).

In Vietnam, this day is a very important feast and family day. For many it is their only holiday in the year. People who have left home will travel back to the place where they were born, and much money and effort will be put into organising the Tet. The tradition is to make sure you are able to give hospitality and offer a place at your table to any person who comes to visit you on New Year’s day. You will honour a person who has provided a favour for you for many years subsequently by paying them a visit on Tet.

A few days before the Tet the family gets together and buys the provisions and cleans and decorates the house. On the evening before Tet (the Vietnamese New Year’s Eve) the whole family will get together in the pagoda that houses the ashes of their ancestors. There is a ceremony which lasts until midnight. It is believed that the ancestors return for the first three days of the New Year.

The traditional belief is that the person who first enters the house on Tet will have the most luck in the year to come. Furthermore, the first visitor to the house on New Year’s Day will determine how blessed or lucky the household will be.

The first three days of the New Year are reserved for going to visit or being visited by friends and family. Younger people will go to visit older people. You wear your best clothes and there are further opportunities to visit the pagoda and in many small ways draw good luck towards you for the whole year to come. People also exchange ‘lucky money’, a type of red banknote, which again brings good fortune. After the three days there is a small ceremony to say farewell to the ancestors, who will return to their resting places until the following New Year.

In India, there are similar customs where the first customer of the New Year is treated specially (offered a gift, for example) and buyers will not haggle because there is a belief that the first sale of the year is important and will determine the luck of the business for the year to come.

In Europe, New Year is now on the 1^st of January. But it was not always like this. In the 6^th and 7^th centuries, the New Year started on the 1^st of March. Under Charlemagne it started at Christmas and under the Capetian Kings, who ruled France from 987 to 1328, it started at Easter. It even varied from province to province!

In Europe, the start of the New Year is celebrated with big parties and fireworks, as in Asia. But unlike in Vietnam, there are not usually any religious ceremonies around New Year’s Eve. These tend to take place around Christmas.