Lunar New Year
By Samantha Huynh (11)
For my family, the Lunar New Year is the most important holiday. It is a time to gather and reflect on the past year, as well as wish for continued prosperity in the new year. My family is from Vietnam, a country in Southeast Asia, and the Lunar New Year marks the beginning of the lunar calendar, a sacred and traditional calendar still used in many Asian countries. While this holiday varies from country to country, my family celebrates it with traditional clothes, red envelopes, food, and activities. Every year, the girls of the family buy new traditional dresses together, called áo dài. The dresses are long, colorful, and flowy, and symbolize good luck in the new year. New Year's Eve is a busy day, starting with cleaning the house to sweep away any bad luck. The evening consists of a joint dinner between all family members, typically celebrated at my grandparent's house. We have a traditional meal of rice rolls, noodles, and seafood. After dinner, we play a traditional board game called bầu cua cá cọp as we spend quality time together waiting until midnight. On New Year's Day, my family wakes up early to cook vegetarian dishes that will be later used in prayer. We visit the local Buddhist temple as well as the cemetery to pray for our ancestors, offer them food, and clean the gravesites. Upon returning from these activities, our extended family, including my grandparent's siblings, traditionally come over to exchange red envelopes and eat more traditional dishes. Red envelopes are symbolic in Vietnamese and Asian culture because they are given to younger children in hopes of good health and academics. In the evening, my family and I visit a local Lunar New Year festival, where lion dances are performed, traditional music is played, and happiness is spread through food, culture, and language. Overall, the Lunar New Year is a holiday that represents who I am as an Asian-American teenager growing up in the United States. It is a holiday that symbolizes where I come from, my origins from thousands of miles away yet still feeling so ingrained in myself. It is a holiday that brings back nostalgic memories of my childhood - most significantly, it is a holiday that reminds me of my roots and makes me remember that although I am American, I will never forget where my family came from.
