Vestmark Celebrates Vietnamese New Year

Tell me a little bit about your background.

I was born in a southwestern town in Vietnam, and when I was just about to enter middle school, my family immigrated to the United States. My parents like to keep traditions. We usually celebrate Vietnamese New Year (T?t) whether it rains, snows, or shines here in Massachusetts. I have a unique perspective having experienced T?t, and many other events in my life, in very different places and at very different times. Through all these experiences, my parents have always taught me the value of focusing on what we have, instead of dwelling on the things we do not, to live our lives. As a simple example, for a long time in the past, we did not have access to fresh Ochna integerrima blooms to decorate our house for T?t because these flowers were more abundant in a tropical climate like Vietnam. However, my father was always cheerful that artificial versions of these blooms in combination with countless other fresh yellow flowers we could find here would bring out the spirit of the New Year, and he was right. I have always led my life with a similarly positive outlook.

Can you tell me about the Vietnamese New Year and how it is observed and celebrated?

Every year T?t starts with anticipation and preparation, usually towards the end of January or the beginning of February. For most of us who use the standard Gregorian calendar, no one really knows the exact date of New Year unless we ask our parents, or consult Google. However, there is a certain smell, sound, or feeling that T?t is in the air, so we begin to clean and decorate our homes with flowers, colorful fruits, and banners. All of them are carefully selected and designed to draw in good fortune for the new year and keep out bad luck.?

Traditional duties include, on certain dates, cleaning ancestral burial grounds if one lives near them and ceremoniously sending the Kitchen Deity off (i.e., offering food and burning incense) on his journey to the Heavens to report on the prior year. All foods need to be purchased so they could then simply be prepared on New Year’s Days. Any gifts to families and friends are also to be delivered before the new year begins.

On New Year’s Eve, the Kitchen Deity is to be welcomed back from the Heavens ceremoniously. When the clock strikes midnight, tradition insists that everyone simultaneously makes loud noises to ward off evil spirits. Before they were outlawed, firecrackers were used to make that kind of noise in Vietnam. I was able to experience it only once, and it was a unique experience when firecrackers were lit up by every household in the country at midnight, for a very long time. Many have experimented with replacing firecrackers with something safer, including recordings of firecrackers’ sound, for New Year’s Eve. These days, we simply watch a show of fireworks, like everyone else in the world. People who want an even bigger display can include lion dance(s) in front of their houses.

New Year’s Days are to be spent with families and friends. As anything happening on these first days is supposed to indicate what the rest of the year is like, one should prepare lots of smiles and well-wishes for others. Children who want to receive red envelopes of lucky money from adults should know how to wish them good fortune. Since gifts should have already been exchanged before, it is considered extremely rude for a guest to bring anything, except for red envelopes for the children, when visiting someone else’s house on New Year’s Days. A guest is not expected to do anything, except enjoy what the host has to offer, because a company’s bright presence on New Year’s Days is as valuable as gold.

How can people learn more about your culture and support your community?

The details I have provided thus far are from my own experiences with T?t celebrations, but the traditions can be confirmed by books or countless other content available online. I am also happy to tell anyone who is unfamiliar but curious enough to ask me questions about our traditions. In Vietnam and the general region, everyone is bustling about, preparing for and enjoying the festivities, and it is simply easy for anyone to gain a cheerful spirit. Elsewhere, it may be tougher to do so if other people do not seem to care too much about what we are observing. The biggest support to our community, to me, then, is the curiosity and the acknowledgment that our traditions do exist and that we should observe them. I have been fortunate to have that kind of curiosity and acknowledgment surrounding me in my life, no matter where I happen to be.

How does Vestmark support a culture of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion?

My Middle and High School years in Massachusetts were enjoyable, largely because the Vietnamese Club, of which I was a member, prepared for and set up one of the biggest events in our school every year: the T?t celebration. The faculty and, seemingly, the entire student body joined in our festivities. Many were indeed curious about our traditions, but, most importantly, almost everyone was happy for/with us. I have found the same support at Vestmark. For instance, the first year I brought in the traditional sweet assortment every Vietnamese household would have for T?t, colleagues from different departments, by word of mouth, came over to my desk, simply to find out about my culture and enjoy the sweets. So, I continued to bring in the same sweet treats every year after that, around Vietnamese New Year’s time, in the pre-COVID world.

Besides T?t, Vestmark has organized many other cultural events, such as Diwali festivities and International Food Day, in addition to the usual holiday favorites. One memorable moment for me was when we decided to have a small gathering one day during lunch, after discovering a unique link between Eastern European and Eastern Asian cuisine. A colleague volunteered to make the common dish, which would not normally be found anywhere in the markets or restaurants. Our CEO nonchalantly walked over to ask us about it. Due to dietary restrictions, he was not able to taste it, but he was genuinely interested in it. Other examples of openness consist of presentations by many colleagues sharing traveling and cultural learning experiences.