Vibrant Vietnamese Lunar New Year celebration just hours before move to red

Friday, 28 January 2022

The Lunar New Year falls on February 1, heralding the Year of the Tiger.

Many have heard of Chinese New Year, but this is only part of an umbrella of Lunar New Year festivities celebrated by several East Asian and Southeast Asian communities across the country. Lunar New Year marks the beginning of the lunar calendar and this year, it falls on February 1.

Tết Nguyên Đán, is the Lunar New Year celebration for Vietnamese people, and the Vietnamese Community in New Zealand managed to squeeze in a big-spirited celebratory feast just hours before red settings came into place on midnight Sunday.

Hours before the red settings came into place, the Vietnamese Community in New Zealand hosted a spirited Lunar New Year celebration. (Video first published January 2022.)

One-hundred-and-ninety people attended the Tết event held in Wellington last Sunday, which involved singing competitions, folk games, traditional music and food.

Victor Diem is the deputy chairman of the Vietnamese Community in New Zealand, a group of volunteers in Wellington who help organise New Year and full moon celebrations andassist Vietnamese migrants adjust living in New Zealand.

The 190-person event was hosted by the Vietnamese Community in New Zealand. (Image description: Guests are sitting around a table with a lazy susan full of food. The guests are eating and talking to each other and some are wearing áo dài, a traditional Vietnamese garment.)

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Diem said that red clothing represents good luck for the New Year. (Image description: two women dressed in red áo dài in the foreground are holding microphones and singing passionately. There are other people happily singing along in the background and some children in the foreground).

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Diem says that for New Zealand-born Vietnamese children, wearing áo dài is a way for them to proudly remember their heritage. (Image description: A smiling Vietnamese girl is holding a baby. The baby is wearing traditional Vietnamese áo dài).

A fireman arrives at the event after the smoke machines set off a fire alarm. (Image description: A fireman in uniform is walking out of the restaurant after the false alarm).

Diem said the Lunar New Year, a public holiday in Vietnam, was traditionally a period for relaxing and a time when people would try to get home to Vietnam.

Covid-19 has made that much more difficult for the more than 10,000 Vietnamese people around the country, but the “Vietnamese are very adaptable and, apart from [not being able to go home], I don’t think it affects us that much,” Diem said.

Being away from Vietnam has meant that some traditions were inaccessible but “people do adapt and people do [celebrate] Lunar New Year”, he said. For instance, cherry blossoms flourish in Vietnam during the new year, but in New Zealand many families use artificial cherry blossoms instead.

Lunar New Year was usually an opportunity for the older and younger generations to mix and for young people with busy lives to see their elder relatives, Diem said.

For the Tết celebration, guests would bring red foods such as watermelon to symbolise good fortune for the year, and bánh chưng, a sticky rice cake containing mung bean and pork belly, as well as taking the opportunity to dress up in traditional Vietnamese áo dài.

“We often wear a lot of red clothes and red flowers as decorations, because red in our tradition is considered good luck,” Diem said.

“It is an occasion where families with children born in New Zealand [can] be part of our celebration” and for them to have an occasion to wear áo dài “is something for them to be proud of and for them to remember their heritage”.

In Wellington, children and adults danced and sang karaoke between bubbles and smoke machines, until the smoke alarm was triggered, forcing the guests to evacuate for the fire brigade.

Despite that, Diem said the event was “good fun” and the guests quickly resumed partying once they were allowed back in.

Diem’s biggest wish for the New Year is that “people will get a bit more freedom to travel and resume normal life with Covid; I don’t think we can say without Covid.”

Upcoming Lunar New Year events

Auckland Lantern Festival – online – from February 1

Wellington Lunar New Year Festival – multiple locations and online – February 1-12

Under the red settings, events are limited to 100 people with physical distancing. Mask-wearing and vaccine passes are required for anyone above the age of 12. Bookings may be required.