TITLE: CARRY SPRING HOME

Come December in the Lunar Calendar and you will find flowers literally everywhere in Vietnam. From gardens to doorsteps and inside homes, offices and shops, there will be beautiful yellow and orange blooms. Flowers play a huge role during Tet, which is the Vietnamese Lunar New Year.Tet is the most important celebration for the Vietnamese. It is a celebration of the arrival of the New Year based on the Lunar Calendar, with the first day of the year falling in January or February in the Gregorian calendar. Flower villages and gardens nationwide will be full of colourful blossoms in preparation for the holiday. Many kinds of flowers will be found everywhere, mostly those that are yellow or red as these colours are believed to bring good luck. Traders and families visit these gardens in droves, and buy pots by the dozens, for retail or for home decoration. Certain plants are essential for the festive spirit in Tet, just like a Christmas tree is for Christmas: peach flower, marumi kumquat and ochna integerrima. It’s certainly a unique experience, visiting these extremely photogenic gardens and flower markets. You will get to watch farmers tend to these flowers with love and care, hoping that whoever buys them will have a wonderful year ahead. You will see people carrying these potted trees on their motorbikes, on their boats in water area.

AUTHOR: Alex Cao (Viet Nam)