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New Year Festivals in Southeast Asia |
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| What 's called Chinese New Year in the West is known as Tet Nguyen-Den in Vietnamese, and Spring Festival in China. Dates change annually, falling either in January or February on the lunar calendar. (Next year it's on Valentine's Day!) Confusingly for a mid winter event, it actually celebrates the advent of spring sowing. While not a national holiday in Mekong countries outside of China and Vietnam, the festival reigns supreme throughout the Chinese diaspora. |
| Morrison and Robert were in China's Yunnan for this year's pre-celebrations, and in Bangkok we spied popular royal princess Sirindhorn opening the festival in Yaowarat, that city's Chinatown district. |
| This is a time of out-with-the-old and in-with-the-new, and families reunite over food and presents (and for young children, receiving gift envelopes of cash). In Vietnam, it's a time to pay homage to kitchen hearth deity Tao Quan, who yearly presents the family’s “report card” to the heavenly emperor of Jade. Homes are scrubbed clean, then adorned with peach and apricot blossoms representing good fortune and peace. Pairs of watermelons are purchased, with deep red flesh indicating special luck throughout the year. Adults exchange gifts of quality tea leaves, kumquat trees, sugared ginger and sweetened coconut. Banh chung is a sticky or glutinous rice "cake" stuffed with sugary pork and mung beans, tightly wrapped in banana leaves, and boiled for 8 hours. In Vietnam, it's the traditional celebratory food for New Year. Unctuous pork fat surprises westerners tasting this treat for the first time -- an unusual combo of sweet and savory. |
New Year's Southeast Asian equivalent is Songkran in Thailand, Pimai in Laos, and Chaul Chnam Thmey in Cambodia. Whatever it’s called, prepare for a soaking. Held mid April (12-15 April), it marks the end of the long six month dry season drought, and the beginning of annual monsoon showers. Families head home to both make merit and to renew allegiances, while empty cities come to a standstill. Because New Year's falls during the hottest month of the year, typical activities include boat races, feasting, and especially water sports. Cups of water are flung at any passerby, whether young or old, local (and especially) foreign. Even motorcycle and flat bed tucks are not spared the water onslaught, but it is all in good fun. That being said, recent antics can get so carried away -- from ice laden storage chests shot from a hose, to colored powder smeared on clothes and face -- that officials in Laos and Cambodia, particularly, have begun to crack down on revelers. In Thailand's North, Songkran water sports carry on even longer. Carry your wallet, camera and passport in sealed plastic bags to prevent water damage! |
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Chinese Feasts & Festivals a Cookbook |
REV: |
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S.C. Moey |
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Periplus Books. $24.95 |
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We've made a vow to stop using the term Chinese New Year. This festive lunar holiday -- falling anywhere between late January and early February -- is celebrated throughout Southeast Asia and the Orient -- not just by the Chinese. (Some Americans may remember the Vietnamese Tet offensive during that war.)
Yet we'll use the word once more when describing the new book Chinese Feasts & Festivals a Cookbook, by S.C. Moey. The cover and pastel prints superficially belong to a children's book, yet the contents are anything but -- with many authentic holiday recipes we've longed to source.
www.amazon.com |
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