Countryside Tet market

These are markets that have taken place on the last days of the lunar year in many rural areas of Vietnam for hundreds of years and have become a "Tet culture" of Vietnamese people.

Countryside markets usually only meet once a day: mai market (morning market) or hom market (afternoon market), but during Tet, due to the high demand for buying and selling, Tet markets in the countryside often take place all day.

Unlike regular markets, the goods in the Tet market are not only homegrown products grown, harvested and brought to the market by villagers for sale and exchange. The Tet market also has products from nearby craft villages or items produced mostly in urban areas such as: wine, tea, jams, cakes, offerings... The Tet market also has goods that only appear once a year such as: Tet paintings, parallel sentences, Han-Nom characters handwritten or printed on red paper, votive offerings, items for display and decoration of the house. Especially, there are many flowers and fruits typical of spring such as apricot, peach, kumquat...

People go to the Tet market not only to buy and sell, but also to sightsee, to play, to immerse themselves in the vibrant, bustling atmosphere of “welcoming Spring, welcoming Tet” after a year of hard work. Therefore, in the Tet market, there are not only adults taking care of buying and selling, but also children following their parents to see people, see the scenery, to see the gifts they have always wished for: new clothes to wear for Tet, cute and funny toys displayed on the stalls in front of the market gate, delicious cakes and snacks that have left a mark in the minds of children, and to enjoy the atmosphere of Tet that is very close to the peaceful countryside.

The Tet market in the countryside also welcomes the elderly, who go to the market not for the purpose of buying and selling, but to meet and chat with fellow countrymen, peers… who are looking for “a bygone era” that is still imprinted in the market sessions, to share the joys and sorrows of the past year.

For generations, the Tet market in the countryside has not only been a normal economic activity but also a cultural activity, an invisible thread connecting the village and neighborhood, a special space and time for people to feel the harmony of heaven and earth, of all things before spring.

For that reason, the image of the rural Tet market has appeared in many poetic works, including the poem Tet Market by Doan Van Cu printed in the collection Vietnamese Poets (by Hoai Thanh - Hoai Chan, Hoa Tien Publishing House, 1967). This is like a spring picture drawn with verses:

The white clouds gradually turned red on the mountain top.

Pink and blue mist embraces the thatched roof

On the white-edged road on the green hillside

People from the hamlets are bustling about the Tet market.

…

The boys in red shirts ran around.

Some old people walk with canes

She wore a red blouse and smiled silently.

The baby nestled his head in his mother's bib.

Two villagers carrying pigs ran ahead.

The funny yellow cow chased after.

…

A teacher hunched over on the bed,

Hands grinding inkstone, writing spring poems

The old scholar stopped and stroked his beard.

Mouth reciting a few lines of red couplets

The old lady sells goods at the ancient temple.

Water and time to wash hair white

The man with a brown scarf on his head

Sitting and stacking the pile of gold on the mat

…

Nowadays, although life is becoming more and more rushed and modern with many constant changes, causing many old features to fade away, the Tet markets in the countryside still exist. Even though those markets are no longer intact like the Tet Market of poet Doan Van Cu, they are still full of cultural and humanistic values, like slow-motion films preserving for contemporary Vietnamese the beauty of the old Tet in the countryside.

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