Happy Tết Nguyên Đán!
There's so much more to Tết than an offensive
Happy Tết Nguyên Đán! Today is the beginning of the most important holiday in Vietnamese culture.
Unfortunately, for those familiar with the U.S. involvement in Vietnam, the first thing that often comes to mind when mentioning the Lunar New Year holiday is the infamous “1968 Tết Offensive” which caught troops and civilians by surprise and dealt a crushing blow to the confidence and well-being of both.
As I wrote in For the Love of Vietnam: a war, a family, a CIA official, and the best evacuation story never heard:
Since 1968, the holiday had become inextricably linked with the most dramatic turning point of the war. Known as the Tết Offensive, the massive Viet Cong attack effectively tipped the war in the North’s favor despite the fact that they sustained major losses and were essentially crippled by the effort.
It was the visual footage of the Tết battles that soured the American public’s support of the troops in Vietnam. How, after three years of fighting and hundreds of thousands of troops, could the enemy still mount such an attack?
The images and echoes of it still hung in the air in 1975, a dark underscore to an otherwise happy time.
That February, our kind house servants did their best to share the best of the holiday with us. They cooked us a traditional dinner on Tết eve before taking a three-day holiday with their families. They gave each child a small red envelope (the color of good luck for the new year) with 100 đồng in it.
It turned out not to be such a great holiday for my mother, as she had to manage the seven kids on her own for that extended period:
Anyway, Tet is a time of happiness for the New Year mixed with anxiety. The kids have the week off—what will I do with them for nine days?!
My maids will be off for three days as will [driver] Mr. Bi … so I’ll enjoy having an empty house but will miss the lack of transportation.
At the end of the month, she reported:
Tet has come and gone . . . I was really busy without the maids here. Basically, I spent my time trying to find my way around their two kitchens. Couldn’t find a thing.
As we say goodbye to the Year of the Cat (Vietnamese)/Rabbit (Chinese), we welcome the Year of the Dragon a traditional symbol of good energy in all of Southeast Asia, and now—with the growing popularity of the holiday—all across the world.
I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about the holiday and the history. It’s my fervent hope that we all become more familiar with both and find a way to synthesize what has been with where we are today and what we might create for tomorrow.
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How much was 100 dong worth then? How about now? Thanks ! I enjoyed reading this!