The northern highlands are home to a number of established ethnic minorities, notably the Muong, Thai, Tay, Nung, Hmong or Dao... Each ethnic community has their own distinctions in New Year celebrations.
For the Thai, Lunar New Year is of paramount importance. As Tet holidays come, their celebratory feast always feature newly steamed rice, fermented fish, sticky rice, deer, dried venison, dried bamboo shoots or baby green rice… What enhances their peculiarities in Lunar New Year celebrations is their chưng cakes wrapped in either black or white. In preparations, Thai natives also love adding some milled sesame to enhance the cakes’ overall taste. A unique essence in Lunar New Year celebrations of the Thai is to fetch water on the first day of the year to pray for good luck.
Tet holiday of the Dao. Photo: Nguyen Hoang Ha
Tet holidays of the Dao necessarily involve parallel sentences on pillars and walls and their traditional dishes. During these holidays, Dao people refrain from anything, save fun, outings and mutual wishes. In particular, in run-up to the holidays Dao natives hold a dancing ceremony for physical exercises and martial arts as well. Muscular lads or lassies at 18 or early twenties are supposed toexercise to join choreographic vibes in the midst of thunderous drum and cymbal beats.
As their Tet arrives, Hmong people celebrate a number of ceremonies, though best known ones include Gau Tao festival that takes place between Lunar January 1st and 15th. Hosts who want to celebrate the festival erect a neu tree on their courtyard to signify and invite onlookers. A neu tree typically rises 10 to 12m high, being a plain and lustrous bamboo trunk left fully leafy and decorated with numerous colors. Following the sacrifice, the host sings hymns to his hamlet and wishes everyone a happy new year. In the midst of horn and flute melodies, lads and lassies in their ethnic costumes sing, dance and exchange liquor. On Tet holidays, Hmong natives also delight in various folk games such as stick pushes, pillar climb or liquor pot tugging…
Nung natives’ Lunar New Year . Photo: Ngo Chi Thanh
Nung people start their Lunar New Year purchases from Lunar December 28th. In their properly long standing New Year celebrations, a memorial feast to their forefathers is incomplete without chưng cake, boiled castrated chicken, confections, pork, Tray of Five fruits and two cypresses laid by the kitchen and splendid peach blossom branches here and there. Funs in these holidays typically include singing exchanges, martial arts, stick pushes, lion dance, con ball throwing and shuttlecock sport…
Muong people prepares for their Lunar New Year from Lunar December 27th. On this occasion, each family has their altar decorated with a tray of five fruits and two flanking sugar canes. A New Year feast dedicated to the deceased includes a boiled chicken, chưng cake, tube cake, liquor, glutinous steamed rice, boiled pork, coins, a bowl of freshwater, areca and betel, fish sauce and salt. Before the meal, offspring stands in line to kowtow to their grandparents, parents and the elderly while the elderly stand up wishing their offspring good health and fortune. During the three Tet holidays, Muong people refer to a holiday for the father, one for the mother and the other for the shaman, most important persons in their perceptions. On these days, Muong children roam their hamlets, banging on cymbals and singing sắc bua chants.
Tay people start celebrating Lunar New Year from Lunar December 26th, and by Lunar January 7th they stumble down paddy fields to do maiden ploughs, and by January 15th, they prepare cakes, chicken or duck… again to “repeat” Tet holidays that last up until the month’s end. On Tet holidays, all four feet of their altar are bound with four sugar canes. In particular, on the first day, family members gather around the feast, exchange wishes and long for a kind, sincere and adorable man to come. On Lunar New Year, lads and lassies throw con balls, push sticks, throw balls, play Chinese chess and exchange chants…
Tuan Hai
