VietNamNet Bridge – Like other Vietnamese people, Vietnamese students celebrate Tet with banh chung (square glutinous rice cake) and lean pork paste. However, the Tet of Vietnamese students, the young people, still has something special.

Charles Whalen Ruttherford from the Hanoi University of Social Sciences and Humanity

Wang Zhi, a student from China, also said that he was so surprised when seeing so many motorbikes rolling on the streets. He said that no motorbike can be seen on Tet days in Chinese cities. Motorbikes are prohibited from going to the inner cities in order to minimize pollution.

As for Kinga Kurowska, a student from Poland said the impressive things are not only the scenery of young couple driving motorbikes on streets, but also the scenery of girls and boys giving fine airs to take pictures next to Santa Claus and pine trees at Trang Tien Plaza. She said that she has never seen the thing like that before in Poland.

Most of the foreign students in Vietnam said that they have been very impressed with the way of celebrating the New Year (Solar New Year) and Tet (Lunar New Year).

Charles has married a Vietnamese girl, a student from Hai Duong province for five months, related that in the US on the New Year’s Eve, people embrace and kiss, as well as wishes of congratulations and others on New Year’s. Boys always go out with girlfriends on New Year’s Eve and no one would refuse sweet kisses on the occasion.

Last year, Charles celebrated Tet with his girlfriend, who is now his wife, in Vietnam. He and the wife’s family went out to see fireworks. “However ‘when in Rome, do as Romans do,’ I dared not to kiss my wife as her father stood right behind us,” Charles said.

Another thing that surprises Charles is that while the US youth always do not stay together with parents on New Year’s Eve and go out all the night, Vietnamese youth do not do this. That explains why streets are completely empty on Tet days.

It is lucky enough for Vietnamese students that they have two Tets, or they can enjoy Tet two times a year, the Solar New Year (westerners’ Tet) and Lunar New Year (Vietnamese Tet). They celebrated Solar New Year on January 1 and are now going to enjoy the traditional Tet.

Cam Quyen