Why are spring festivals imbued with the atmosphere of Tet?

Once, on the occasion of the Santa Lucia Festival organized by the Swedish Embassy, Former Ambassador Borge Ljunggren noted that folk festivals are mirrors reflecting and preserving a nation’s identity.

A man with a passion for Vietnamese folk culture, Mr. Ljunggren might make the same point about the spring festivals organized by villagers in the Red River Delta, the cradle of Vietnamese culture.

For thousands of years, Vietnamese peasant have handed down this folk song about the lunar year:

The first month is for enjoyment,

The second, for gambling,

The third, for festival!

Around the world, folk festival center on weather, religion, farming rituals, and socio-economic life. Sometimes, one factor dominates.

In Viet Nam, the biggest and most popular festival is Tet (Lunar New Year), when people allow the soil to rest and let themselves relax after the year’s hard labour.

At Tet, Vietnamese rejoice in nature, spend time with family and friends, and pay homage to their ancestors.

The Tet spirit pervades spring festivals to the third lunar month, villagers begin their festivals during or just after Tet and continue them throughout the three months of spring.

Vietnamese folk festivals release some behaviors usually fettered by strict conventions of social morality. According to Fred, a folk festival allows acceptable excesses whereby, in the name of festival, people violate normal social prohibitions.

Drunkenness, lasciviousness, and carnival-type behavior are tolerated during festivals as ordinary people escape their daily routines.

Freedom in relationships between men and women characterized early Vietnamese culture. However, Confucianism’s two-thousand-year hold on Vietnamese morality restricted the festivities of the fertility cult.

Nevertheless, some early customs still appear during spring festivals. For example, Van Trung Commune (Lap Thach, District, Vinh Phuc province) organized its Ceremony of Catching Small Eels in a Big Jar from the ancient past until the beginning of the 20th century.

In ancient times, organized lined five big jars – one for each of five young couples – in front of the communal house.

Each jar was two-third full of water and contained small eels, which the young couples had to catch, using only their hands. As the competition began, each member of a couple placed one arm around the other’s back, leaving only one hand free to catch the eel.

The man also had to caress the woman’s breast to the cheerful approval and encouragement of the onlookers, while the judges jeered any man who was shy. The winning couple received a rose handkerchief, tea, money, or cups of wine.

Another example is the Jostling Festival of Nga Village in Bac Ninh province. The festival began after the Ceremony of Worship in My Nuong Temple in the moutain.

At first, young and old men jostled against young and old men. Later, the women took their turn jostling the men; their jostling was so strong the men would run away or fall on the ground.

During this ceremony, men could press women’s breasts or touch their bodies. The last night of the festival brought the Ritual of the Blown-Out Lamps, which allowed young people to flirt openly with the opposite sex.

When the lamps were lit again, a couple could leave the festival for some other rendezvous. The villagers did not punish women who became pregnant that night

Why are spring festivals imbued with the atmosphere of Tet?