Overseas Vietnamese attend "Spring in the Homeland": Proud descendants of Lac and Hong

The faces of overseas Vietnamese returning to their homeland amidst the warm weather and golden sunshine of the capital city lit up with joy and happiness as they gathered to attend the "Spring in the Homeland - Glorious Lac Hong" 2014 program, which will take place tonight at Thang Long Imperial Citadel, Hanoi.

The handshakes tightened, the gazes became more heartfelt as Vietnamese people, separated by vast distances across the globe, suddenly reunited in their homeland. Joy radiated from the awkwardness of their candid sharing to the laughter and voices, still distinctly regional, of those who had been away from home for half a century. For them, simply standing here in the breezy Hanoi, speaking their mother tongue with their compatriots, was enough to fill their hearts with overwhelming emotion...

New Year's Eve in the land of snow...

“Thousands of miles away, still preparing the Tet feast / Green sticky rice cakes, homemade rice wine / A platter of five fruits, fragrant incense smoke rising / Calendar by the wall, peach blossoms a delicate red / A melancholy feeling in the deserted village / The shadow of my elderly father wiping the ancestral altar / My mother busily tending the lamp by the hearth / Hearing hesitant footsteps peeking over the threshold / I cannot yet return to visit my parents / My heart aches, the red scar not yet healed / Not yet defeated by the storms of fate / Sorrows turn the days white / I have everything, but how can I have Tet? / So many strangers around me / Behind the window, hazy clouds of a snowy land / The warm hearth, my mother's figure so far away...”

Dr. Nguyen Huy Hoang, a philologist from the Russian Federation, began expressing his nostalgia for Tet (Vietnamese New Year) spent far from home with a poem in which, as he said, he wrote it in a place thousands of miles away, surrounded by white snow and hardworking Vietnamese people.

The man with the white hair said, "I return to Vietnam every two years for Tet (Lunar New Year). People in the country may not fully appreciate the dramatic changes in Vietnam's appearance, but from my perspective, I see how much the country has transformed over the years. People are more dynamic, young people have more intelligence and knowledge than we did, and we have more resources and material comforts. The only problem is the huge disparity between urban and rural areas. I believe that in the not-too-distant future, Vietnam can stand alongside many of the world's leading nations because we have the necessary conditions for integration."

According to Mr. Hoang, with the remaining issues such as food safety and hygiene, social evils, etc., Vietnam can completely resolve them in the near future.

Currently, there are an estimated 100,000 Vietnamese people in the Russian Federation, mainly living in Moscow. Due to improved transportation, in recent years: “Traditional Vietnamese customs have easily been ‘exported’ to Russia. We still celebrate New Year's Eve, have the New Year's Eve dinner as we do at home, choose a first visitor on the first day of the Lunar New Year, give lucky money to children, and welcome guests to our homes to wish us a happy New Year… We maintain the same customs as in Vietnam when we come here. Most surprisingly, almost every family in Russia has an ancestral altar, even students. This shows that Vietnamese culture continues to endure,” Mr. Hoang said.

According to the doctor who has lived in Russia for a quarter of a century, the younger generation of Vietnamese in Russia still enjoys Vietnamese food. However, the problem is that families with the means and care allow their children to learn their mother tongue and understand their roots, while many families preoccupied with work leave their children's education largely to the school, causing them to lose many traditional values. But on the other hand, these children are undeniably excellent students who achieve many high accomplishments.

...And the pride of being descendants of Lac and Hong.

For the second generation, like Mr. Phan Van Vuong, who was born and raised in Thailand, even though he lived in a foreign land and faced poverty at the time, every spring, Mr. Vuong and his siblings would still receive new clothes from their grandparents and parents, eagerly anticipating the traditional Lunar New Year. As a young boy, Vuong experienced the atmosphere of the Vietnamese community in Thailand, with activities such as making banh chung (traditional rice cakes), reciting New Year couplets, burning incense, and offering prayers to welcome the New Year.

“This tradition has educated and instilled in us a sense of national pride and self-respect, a love for our ancestral homeland, the place where our ancestors were born and raised, an appreciation for the fine customs and traditions of the Vietnamese people, and a longing to remember and cherish our roots. We are determined to educate our children and grandchildren to forever preserve and promote this beautiful tradition,” Mr. Vuong shared.

However, every time he returns to his homeland for Tet (Lunar New Year), alongside his pride in tradition, Mr. Vuong also harbors a deep concern about educating, teaching, and encouraging the younger generation to preserve and promote their mother tongue and the beautiful customs and traditions of their people in Thailand.

Because, for generations like Mr. Vuong, the Vietnamese community has always believed that, in addition to using their intellect and expertise to contribute to their host country, they must also actively contribute to the building and protection of their beloved homeland, Vietnam.

"To achieve that goal, we believe that in addition to establishing schools and classes to teach Vietnamese, it is necessary to build a cultural center in northeastern Thailand," Mr. Vuong said.

As for Ms. Pham Thi Thuan, a woman who surprises those who meet her because, despite being nearly 60 years old, she looks as young as someone in their early 40s, and her family situation is quite unique. She has lived in the Czech Republic for several decades, but her husband is still in Hanoi due to illness, while her son lives and works in Ho Chi Minh City, and she and her daughter work in the Czech Republic. Therefore, every year she spends about two months returning to Vietnam to celebrate Tet (Vietnamese Lunar New Year).

For this simple, down-to-earth woman, "The most important thing about Tet is being reunited with family to strengthen the bond between husband and wife, children and grandchildren, and to make up for the distance...," Ms. Thuan said emotionally.

According to Vietnam+