Photo by Alabastro Photography
By Liem Solow
Since 1996, Seattle has successfully hosted an annual Lunar New Year celebrations, with the event being referred to as Tet Nguyen Dan amongst Vietnamese people. In Vietnam, Tet is considered the single most day of the year, with parties lasting for multiple weeks, and school children getting time off for a full month. The equivalent of Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, and one’s own birthday, wrapped into a single celebration. However, unlike previous years, the pandemic has halted many large gatherings and forced events to change. So in order to celebrate, Tet became a digital event this year, avoiding a repeat of last year’s event which led to an exponential rise in Covid cases world wide.
As with every year, celebrations started a full week before the New Year’s Day. On February 5th and 6th, the event kicked off with the release of digital art galleries and coinciding narration of a traditional Vietnamese folk story. The 7th was reserved for discussion around Covid and offering mental health resources to those within the Vietnamese community. The event came into full swing from February 8th-12th, with multiple musical and dance performances, more narrations of folk lore, and the annual fashion show centered around traditional Vietnamese formal wear, called an ao dai.
Speaking with Tu Nguyen, one of the organizers behind the digital transformation of Tet in Seattle, here’s what he had to say going into the celebrations. “We are the most excited for Tet this year… We are [streaming] all of our activities so everybody can join us at home, and not get sick. Making all the activities available [online] was very difficult, but we think we have made the best [celebration] yet.”
Of course, no Tet is complete without access to traditional Vietnamese cuisine. Having started on New Years Days and lasting through February 21st, several dozen participating Vietnamese restaurants offered discounted across their menus. In addition, Tet specific foods are being offered until the end of the month by many of these establishments. Most notably Banh Chung, a sticky rice cake filled with various meats, and Thit Kho Tau, a dish consisting of boiled eggs and pork, are both considered to be centerpieces for Tet given their lengthy heritage in connection to the holiday, dating back over 1500 years before the birth of Christ.
So while the Vietnamese community of Seattle wasn’t able to celebrate Tet this year, as they traditionally have before, Tet in Seattle wasn’t about to let the most important holiday of the year fall by the wayside. Even though it required significant changes, reception and turnout for the event was far greater than anticipated, according to Nguyen. He went on to say that he was quite proud to have been able to take part in organizing the digital transformation. All that said though, he does hope the world returns to a state where Tet can be held in person with family and friends once again.
