A crowd of people gather to celebrate Vietnamese New Year in Hanoi, Vietnam.

Vietnam: Festivals, food and fun

By: Rie Nakanishi

Posted: 11/17/08

Vietnam is about more than just the Vietnam War, the motorcycles and "pho-noodle" soups.

A home to approximately 86 million people, Vietnam has a unique culture that is not known to many Americans.

"Culture is the vital parts of Vietnamese people's life," Vuong Hoang Yen, a Studies in American Language graduate student, wrote in an e-mail.

So are the Vietnamese holidays; there are a lot of festivals that people in Vietnam celebrate.

The two most significant and celebrated festivals among the Vietnamese in and out of the country are the Vietnamese New Year or "Tet Nguyen Dan" and the Mid-Autumn festival or "Tet Trung Thu," said Hien Duc Do, a professor of social science and Asian American studies.

According to Vietnam-Culture.com, the New Year is a family-oriented festival that people celebrate for two to three weeks, bidding farewell to the past year and welcoming another year.

During this celebration, people usually cook traditional Vietnamese dishes such as rice cakes, which are made of sticky rice with bean paste and pork, the same Web site stated. It is the time to wish everyone happiness and good health for the New Year.

The Vietnamese celebrate the Mid-Autumn festival on the 15th day of the eighth month in the lunar calendar. It is a festival to celebrate the children, according to the same Web site.

"(The Vietnamese) want to make sure that we are reminded of the importance of the children in our culture," Do said.

During this festival, the children wear masks, carry lanterns, parade in the street and eat their favorite dishes, which their parents prepare, according to the ThingsAsian Web site. It may be a good time to visit Vietnam and immerse yourself in the Vietnamese culture.

In the U.S., the most popular Vietnamese food is pho. There are a number of pho-noodle restaurants in San Jose alone.

"(Pho) is reasonably priced," Do said. "It's good on winter days. It fills you up. It's tasty and sort of a common-person food."

But there is more to Vietnamese cuisine. A steamed-rolled rice pancake called "Banh cuon" is one of the dishes that Yen recommends Americans try. It is a Vietnamese rice-flour crepe filled with a mix of pork, mushroom and other ingredients.

"One interesting thing about Vietnamese cuisine is that it's a combination of Chinese and French cuisine, but less greasy," Do said. Vietnamese food includes a lot of healthy dishes such as egg rolls and spring rolls, he added.

William Fan, a Chinese student who joined the SJSU Vietnamese Student Association this semester, said he has been learning a lot about the Vietnamese culture and its food, as he spends more time in the club.

"There's a lot of good food," Fan said. "I like pho, but avocado shakes are good."

Avocado shakes are made from fresh avocados, milk, ice and sweetened condensed milk, according to the Viet World Kitchen Web site.

Yen, a student at SJSU, said there are a couple of delicious eateries around the campus such as Vung Tau, Bo Town and Dakao restaurants.

"(Students in Vietnam) like to hang out with friends on the weekend or any free time they have," she said. "Some places a group of friends usually go with are coffee shops or restaurants that are affordable price, roughly U.S. $1 per coffee cup or a dish of food."

The popular cultures among the young generation in Vietnam are Korean and Taiwanese cultures, especially in movies, Yen said.

As a result, the young Vietnamese often imitate the clothing style of those cultures.

"There's a lot of stereotypes of (Vietnam) that are not true that Americans should pay attention to," Do said. "Vietnam is more than just a war. It's been a long time that the Vietnamese themselves have moved on. There's a lot of interesting things that are going on in Vietnam and the Vietnamese-American
community."