Spartan Daily - Serving San Jose State University since 1934

Issue date: 11/17/08 Section: Student Culture

Media Credit: Courtesy of Duong Hoan A crowd of people gather to celebrate Vietnamese New Year in Hanoi, Vietnam.

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.

Continued...

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