The New Year's Eve prayer ceremony is a beautiful intangible cultural feature of the Vietnamese people.

In every family, every clan, or village communal house, temple,... people come to offer prayers at the beginning of the year, hoping for good things, which has become a precious custom.

Tet is an occasion for people to return to their roots, reunite, and have fun after a year of hard work. Tet is also an opportunity to gather, crystallize, preserve, and spread the good cultural values that our ancestors have passed down for thousands of years. One of the most precious cultural features of the Vietnamese people is going to pagodas and making offerings at spiritual places at the beginning of the new year.

In the Vietnamese mind, the New Year's prayer ceremony cannot be missed. It has been passed down for a long time by our ancestors, and the intangible spiritual cultural beauty is preserved and promoted.

Each locality and region has different ways and beliefs, but they all share a clear understanding that the peace-praying ceremony is held at the beginning of the new year. Starting from the Lunar New Year until the full moon of January (15th lunar month).

The first meal of the year is a beautiful intangible cultural feature of the Vietnamese people, picture 1 — New Year's Eve ceremony at Huyen Tran Princess Temple.

The New Year's Eve ceremony at Huyen Tran Temple is held on the 9th day of the first lunar month every year at Huyen Tran Temple, An Tay Ward, Hue City, Thua Thien Hue Province. The festival is an opportunity for locals and visitors to commemorate the great contributions of Princess Huyen Tran, who contributed greatly to the expansion of Dai Viet territory. Princess Huyen Tran, daughter of King Tran Nhan Tong, was married to King Che Man of Champa in exchange for the two Chau O and Ly (now Quang Tri and Thua Thien Hue).

The Huyen Tran Temple Festival is held to commemorate her great contributions, to express gratitude and appreciation to the talented and beautiful princess who sacrificed her personal happiness for the common good of the country. The festival also contributes to preserving the nation's fine cultural traditions, educating patriotism and solidarity for the younger generation.

The reason why the ceremony is held at the beginning of the year (especially the full moon day of the first lunar month) is because in the 12 months of the year, the full moon of the first lunar month is the brightest, at that time heaven and earth are in harmony, all things grow, and the atmosphere is clear and bright. Therefore, the homeowner often chooses the full moon day of the first lunar month to hold the ceremony to worship ancestors, to show respect and pray for the whole family to have a smooth and favorable year.

Offerings for praying for peace are not complicated, they come from the heart, each region has its own way. But in general, there are two basic things: worshiping ancestors and gods and worshiping Buddha.

Depending on the economic level and sincerity, the offerings are different, but the core cannot lack a tray of five kinds of fruit (five different kinds of fruit displayed on a tray), candles, incense, wine, sticky rice, chicken offering or pig's head (a pig's head is carefully prepared and boiled), pig's head holding a pig's tail.

Offerings are displayed on the altar, which is also the time when the homeowner lights incense and prays. All offerings brought to worship on this peace-praying day must be completely new, and items from Tet must not be reused, even if they have not been used.

The prayer for peace also depends on each region and each concept. The prayer is short, concise, has humanistic beliefs, and educates children to look to their ancestors and roots, believe in spirituality to have peaceful and lucky days.

The first meal of the year is a beautiful intangible cultural feature of the Vietnamese people, picture 2 — People of Tram Hamlet, Tan Son Village, Hai Son Commune offer New Year's Eve offerings.

Mr. Nguyen Van Thieu, Head of Tram Hamlet (Tan Son Village, Hai Son Commune, Hai Lang District, Quang Tri Province) said: Tram Hamlet was formed more than 100 years ago by our fathers and grandfathers. Before, this place was a wild land, our fathers and grandfathers came here to open the land. Until now, every time Tet comes (on the 10th day of the lunar calendar), the children and grandchildren in the hamlet contribute money to make offerings to pray for peace at the beginning of the year. First, to remember the past merits of our fathers and grandfathers who built this land, then to pray for the blessings of God to bless the children and grandchildren in the hamlet with a new year full of good things, happiness and especially for the children and grandchildren to be united, the village to be crowded and happy, to work together to build the homeland to be more and more prosperous.

The first meal of the year is a beautiful intangible cultural feature of the Vietnamese people, picture 3 — New Year's prayer ceremony of Tram hamlet.

The precious thing is that the New Year's prayer ceremony is increasingly being paid attention to by people from old to young, considering it a necessary thing to do to show gratitude to ancestors, wishing to erase mistakes in life to move towards noble things.

Going to spiritual places to pray at the beginning of the year is a beautiful cultural belief of Vietnamese people. The problem is that each person needs to raise awareness and have the right behavior to both preserve and promote the traditional cultural values of the nation, and demonstrate the beauty of spring culture every time Tet comes.

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