Pre-made food lessens Tet’s burden on women
For most Vietnamese people, the Tet (Lunar New Year) Festival symbolises the beginning of a new year and the accompanying hopes for a happy life.
No matter the family’s circumstances, people always prepare traditional dishes for ancestor worship with the hope that the ancestors will bless their descendants with good health, luck and prosperity in the Lunar New Year.
An advertisement for the Tet food making service in front of a supermarket (Photo: VNA)
Traditional dishes like banh chung (square sticky rice cake), gio lua (lean pork paste), thit dong (frozen meat stew), canh mang (bamboo sprout soup) and nem (spring roll) are popular dishes around Tet.
The burden for preparing all of this falls on women. And the incomplete progress towards gender equality means that they must balance this task with many other responsibilities, such as career and childcare. As such, an increasing number of women, still expected by their families to serve the traditional meals, are selecting ready-to-eat food service to help them save time and effort.
Nguyen Thu Huyen, from Hanoi’s Thanh Xuan district, is among them.
As a chief accountant for a private company, she had to work until the last day before Tet. Over the past two years, Huyen has usually hired people to prepare food and all that she has to do is display them on the family altar.
"With this service, I have more time to rest, play and take care of my children. I think this is a very convenient service, helping to share some of the burdens of women," she said.
Tran Thuy Ha, from Hai Ba Trung district, has another story to share.
Living with her husband’s family after marriage, Ha had no chance to celebrate Tet the way she wanted for the past seven years.
She had to clean and decorate the house as well as rush to the supermarket to buy many things for the festival.
Now thinking that it is time to relax after a year of hard work, Ha has decided to order meals for this Tet.
She said she spent only fifteen minutes preparing food for the first three days of the Lunar New Year.
However, purchasing ready-to-eat food is not something everyone favours, especially old people.
62-year-old Le Thi Nam, from Hai Duong province, said: “Like many Vietnamese, I thought that Tet was the important time of the gods, ancestors, grandparents who have passed away and it is the occasion for family members and their relatives to reunite.”
In the past, people used to look forward to Tet to enjoy delicious foods. But now that the country is richer, many formerly special foods are available every day. What makes Tet food special is that it is prepared by families to eat together.
Vietnamese has its saying “uong nuoc nho nguon” which roughly translates as “when drinking water, you should think of the source.”
Thus, she said, people should prepare delicious specialties by themselves on this occasion to show respect for ancestors and grandparents.
The food will be offered to the ancestors first, then served to the family during Tet, she explained.
Tet is the time that women are busy preparing dishes to worship the Kitchen Gods and ancestors, but also for all family members to get together and share the work, Nam said, adding that preparing traditional dishes for ancestor worship together helped tighten the relationship between family members because some of them haven’t met each other for a long time.
Historian Le Van Lan agreed. “Whenever we asked an older person about his wish on the New Year, they would remember the warmth of family reunions. They could be the days that Kitchen Gods return to the Heaven, the gathering of family members around square sticky rice pot or the assignment of wrapping nem (spring rolls) on the eve of the Lunar New Year,” he told a local media.
During Tet, people visit one another, entertain with food and drinks, and greet each other with wishes for luck and happiness. This cultural custom reflects the Vietnamese people’s longstanding, durable relationship not only inside their families, but also in their native places.
“In my opinion, though Tet is the time for togetherness and cohesiveness, most Vietnamese women are the most miserable as they bear the burden of preparing for the occasion. Why don’t we change to make Tet happier for them and they will have more time to relax?”
“I still remember when I was a small child, my mother was always busy preparing traditional foods like banh chung, dua hanh (pickled onion) or bamboo sprout soup as these foods take much time. For example, bamboo sprout should be soaked in water about half a month before Tet and the water needs to be changed every day.”
“As a result of exhaustion from Tet preparations, it was easy for my mother to get angry with us whenever we did things that she did not expect. At that time, we hoped that my mother could make a simple Tet for our family.”
“I think we have many ways to celebrate the New Year. We can still maintain the tradition of preparing offerings for ancestral worship, but we can trim the preparations without spending so much time shopping and cooking before and during the holiday so that the spirit of the occasion can be kept alive - which is what counts more than where the food came from.” Lan said.
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