International students in the US send books home for Tet

The book drive was part of the Tet celebration organized by the Vietnamese Students and Scholars Association at Michigan State University on the evening of February 18. Nearly 50 graduate students, post-graduate students and students from schools in Michigan such as East Lansing, Ann Arbor and Grand Rapis participated in the traditional Tet gathering.

Tran Thi Ngoc Diep, a graduate student at the University of Michigan, shared that Vietnamese children do not have many English books. Diep and her friends from the Vietnam Book Drive for Kids project called on people to donate new or used books to send to Vietnam during the New Year as a Tet gift for their homeland.

"These books will help form reading habits, nurture the soul, and especially improve children's English skills," said Ms. Diep.

These books were donated by international students to libraries in Michigan and book fairs, or purchased at a discount. For nearly a year, project members have placed boxes of donated books at school libraries and received books and shipping costs from kind-hearted people.

The books are diverse in genre, from fairy tales, English learning books to basic science books... Right at the Tet festival, international students divided into groups to enter data on children's books by scanning the barcodes of the books. The books were then packed and shipped to Vietnam as soon as possible. This year, the Vietnamese Consulate in the US in San Francisco supported the group in sending books to Vietnam.

Le Thanh Mai, President of the Vietnamese Students and Scholars Association at Michigan State University, said that unlike previous years, this year the Association celebrated Tet late because the first day of Tet fell in the middle of the week, and everyone was busy with work and study.

To prepare for the Tet gathering, international students in Michigan have been wrapping and cooking banh chung since last week. Banh chung molds were brought from Vietnam, dong leaves were replaced with banana leaves and plastic strings were replaced with string. Some international students shared that they only learned and knew how to wrap banh chung when they came to America.

On the night of gathering to celebrate Tet, international students performed "homegrown" performances imbued with the sounds of their homeland such as:Rice Drum, Water Float Cake… The children of international students born in the US wear Ao Dai, wrap scarves, and receive Tet lucky money. The beautiful cultural features of Vietnam are preserved and light a warm fire in the hearts of those far from home.

An Nguyen