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CUSTOMS AND TRADITIONS
Lets talk about festivals
1. How do you celebrate festivals in your country? Vietnam has many festivals, and the traditional customs vary from festival to festival, so I also celebrate each of them in a distinct way. During Tet holiday, I will clean and decorate my house, cook traditional food and visit my relatives. On Hung Kings commemoration day, I usually visit the Hung Temple since I live in Phu Tho. On Independence day our family often gathers together and have a big meal. 2.What special food and activities do you have for these festivals? I think only in festivals based on the Lunar calendar do we have specific foods and activities. For example, during Tet, most families cook nem, boiled chicken, banh chung, gio and cha. In the Mid-Autumn festival, we have the five-fruit tray and mooncake. We also make banh troi on Hung Kings commemoration day, banh rom or banh gio in the Dragon Boat festival. During Tet we have a lot of activities, such as giving and receiving lucky money, visiting relatives and neighbors, in Mid-Autumn we have lantern parade for children and lion dance, and many traditional customs during other holidays. However, the common thing I found during these holidays is we all burn incense to our ancestors as a way to remember and tribute them. 3. Do you celebrate foreign festivals? I don’t celebrate foreign festivals, and I think most people in Vietnam don’t either. It’s true that in big cities and developed areas you can see they decorate the streets, shops and houses during Christmas, and people go out the street to celebrate it, but they don’t really follow the customs or traditions that are practiced in Christmas. Lets talk about public holidays 4.How many public holidays do you have in your country ? There are 6 public holidays in Vietnam: New Year’s Day, Tet, Hung Kings commemorations, day of Southern Liberation and National Reunification, International worker’s day and Independence day. 5. Do you think people need more public holidays? I personally think we need more public holidays. First of all, I think the length of Tet celebration should be longer, and I also want Trung Thu to become a national holiday too. 6. What your favorite holidays ? My favorite holiday is Tet, the Vietnamese New Year. As a child, I loved this event because I could wear beautiful clothes going around my relatives and neighbors houses, eating a lot of candies and receiving lucky money. Now that I’m older these things don’t really impress me anymore but I just love the festive spirit of this holiday. Describe an interesting tradition in your country The Mid-Autumn festival, or Tet Trung Thu, is one of the grandest festivals in Vietnam. It is often considered a "children's festival", but everyone in the country, regardless of ages and genders, enjoys this day. It is an occasion for family reunion, to celebrate a successful harvest season, and for the children to play together and enjoy sweet treats. This event takes place on the 15th day of the 8th Lunar month, when the moon is thought to be at its fullest and brightest. A few weeks before the celebration day, the streets are filled with colorful lanterns, shops are stuffed with toys of various shapes and sizes, and moon-cakes shops start opening. People go down the street to shop for the upcoming festival, and the festive atmosphere flows everywhere. On the night of the Mid-Autumn festival, children put on their mask, bear their brightly colored lanterns and go parade around the neighborhood singing songs. One of the most popular songs on this day is "Chiec den ong sao", or "The star- shaped lantern". They play together happily under the bright moonlight. Lion dancers groups perform along with the drumbeats, and a male dancer wearing a round-happy face-mask delights the crowd with his comical moves. - Families welcome Tet Trung Thu by placing a five-fruit tray and cakes on their ancestral altar. When the children come back home from their parade, the families will gather together to enjoy the food, especially moon cakes. - Although it is not an official holiday in Vietnam, Trung Thu is one of the biggest and most looked forward to by people across the nation. It is a great chance for families to gather and enjoy their memorable moment together How important do you think customs and traditions are for the country I think they are very important. They reflect and shape values, beliefs, and aspirations, thereby defining a people's national identity. It is important to preserve our cultural heritage and customs, because it keeps our integrity. We intentionally create and continue traditions because they provide a sense of belonging and meaning to our lives. Traditions remind us of who we are and where we belong. Who tends to enjoy national celebrations more: young or old and why I think young people tend to enjoy national celebrations more. THey are young and energetic, so they are very eager to go out and take part in the activities of the celebrations. But old people tend to preserve and follow the customs of these national celebrations more correctly. Are there any traditions in your culture that you would like to disappear It is not a tradition of Vietnamese culture, but it exists in my area and I assume that in some other parts of the country it also exists. It is a festival in the springtime, after the Tet holiday, that people bring a pig to a large ground and some selected men will chase after it trying to stab it with sharp spearheads. I just don’t understand the point of all of this, and it is just so im-moral and cruel. I hope it will be eradicated soon. Some people think national celebrations are a waste of govement money? No, it is not a waste of money when it is used to preserve and maintain the beauty of a culture and traditional values of a country.