Festivals in Vietnam

In the Great Mekong Subregion, Vietnam is quite different from its neighbouring countries for the culture as well as for the festivals. Vietnam is as well the home of many local festivals in the honour of a local hero, a king or as well the founder of a village. This is as well a great way to learn about the local culture and local food. In Vietnam more than in the other countries of the region, the festival dates depend of the lunar calendar.

• Between late-January and mid-february, the country starts the New Year with the most important festival of the country, the Vietnamese Tet, locally called Tet Nguyen Dan. Usually it is a family event where people decore their house with plum trees branches and prepare some food specialities such as banh chung (a square cake made of sticky rice stuffed with beans and pork). This festival is a great opportunity for each other to meet, eat and make social activities. The Giao Thua is the most sacred point of time with, the passage from the old to the new year.

• Late February/March: it is time to honour the ancestors with Thanh Minh

• March: The Cow Racing Festival is a local funny festival hold by a khmer ethnic group in An Giang province. If the religious part of the festival dedicated to the ancestor is quite and serious with offering place on banana leaf pushed into the water, the other part of this event is more hilarious with a cow race along a 120m strait line in a muddy and slippery rice field.

• April: the Whale Festival in Danang has been for centuries the biggest water festival of the fishemen in Quang Nam Province. The worshipping of the whale aims to ensure prosperity and a boat procession is hold on the sea

• May: the 8th day od the 4th moon is the celebration of the birth, the enlightning and the death of Buddha. For this event, Vietnamese decore all the temples, pagodas and houses with lanterns with lively procession

• June: Tiet Doan Ngo aims to keep the epidemics away from the families by given offering to the spirits • August: During this month the Wandering Spirits Day (Trung Nguyen) is commemorated. This is the second most important event in Vietnam and people give offering such as food, money and gift to the wandering spirit of the dead.

• August/September (15th day of the 8th moon): Trung Thu is dedicated for the children and is a very ancient festival. Effectively, after the harvest season, the festival came as a way for parents to give the lost time to their children. This is a period where many colourful items are on sales (especially candies, cakes..) and kids receive new toys