Vietnamese community welcomes all to New Year’s celebration

Phen Bob Pham never would have imagined life as a successful businessman and co-organizer of Honolulu’s Vietnamese Festival when he left his home in Ca Mau, South Vietnam, in 1978.

Just 19 years old, he boarded a small fishing boat packed with 40 other people and made the harrowing trip across the Gulf of Thailand to Malaysia where he lived in a refugee camp for a year.

The communists of North Vietnam had emerged victorious three years earlier in their war against U.S.-backed South Vietnam. It was a brutal conflict that lasted 20 years and took the lives of more than 3 million people, including some 58,000 Americans.

Pham’s departure was bittersweet. He loved his homeland, but, like thousands of his countrymen who fled Vietnam after the war, he dreamed of a better life. He arrived in Honolulu in 1979, speaking little English, and found a job as a taxi driver.

Hard work, thrift and sacrifice paid off. Eleven years later the enterprising Pham opened a jewelry store, Debbie’s Jewelry in Waipahu, named after his wife. It remains family-owned and operated, with the couple, their three sons and a daughter-in-law at the helm.

Now 59, Pham is grateful to have settled, raised a family and succeeded in business in Hawaii. Part of his heart, however, will always be in Vietnam, where his younger sister still lives.

He is a member of the Hoi Den Hung Foundation, a nonprofit San Diego-based humanitarian organization, which is spearheading the Vietnamese Festival for the second year. Launched in 1980 by Vietnamese community groups to celebrate Tet, the New Year holiday, the event has become so popular it is expanding to two days this year.

Attendees can enjoy Vietnamese music, dances, games, a parade and traditional food. On display will be a model of Thien Quang Pagoda, one of six temples at the famous Hung Vuong Temple complex in the Phu Tho province of North Vietnam. The temples honor the first descendants of the mythological founders of the Vietnamese kingdom, Lac Long Quan and Au Co.

Also on view will be a wooden fishing boat that Pham finished building just a few months ago; it is a replica of the vessel that carried him to Malaysia and his new life four decades ago.

A 40-foot replica of a “cau khi” (monkey bridge) that Pham fashioned from a palm tree and bamboo will also be on display. Vietnamese villagers still use such rickety footbridges to cross streams and gullies.

“The goal is to maintain the local Vietnamese community’s cultural identity and to inspire the younger generation to carry on traditions, but the festival is not just for Vietnamese people,” Pham said. “Everyone is invited to come, learn about Vietnamese history and culture, and enjoy themselves. I think the festival’s theme says it all: ‘Xuan doan ket,’ ‘Bringing everybody together.’”

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ABOUT TET

Tet is short for Tet Nguyen Dan, which means “Feast of the First Morning of the First Day of the New Year.” To the Vietnamese the three-day festival is the most important celebration of the year. Based on a lunar calendar, the Asian New Year is celebrated on Feb. 16 this year.

Families prepare a week before by paying off debts, resolving disputes, cooking feasts, cleaning house and buying new clothes to wear during the holiday. Decorations incorporate kumquat plants; marigolds, orchids and chrysanthemums; apricot, peach, plum and blossoms; and a conical tree festooned with charms, greeting cards, origami fish and other symbols of fortune. Incense and “mam ngu qua,” a fruit tray or basket containing five different fresh fruits, are placed at home altars to honor ancestors.

At midnight on New Year’s Eve, revelers strike gongs, ring bells, burn firecrackers, beat drums, perform “mua lan” (lion dance) — in short, make as much noise as possible to chase away evil spirits.

In Vietnamese belief, what happens on New Year’s Day indicates how the entire year will unfold; therefore, everyone is in a positive frame of mind. They avoid arguments, negative thoughts and those in mourning because it is bad luck to be around anyone associated with death. Families invite a person they perceive as kind, generous, honorable, respected and affluent as the first guest in their home in the new year.

Over the next few days, time is reserved for visiting loved ones, exchanging gifts (often food, representing the hope that no one will go hungry in the coming year) and offering prayers at temples. Before receiving good-luck “li xi,” red envelopes containing money, children greet elders with traditional sayings such as “Song lau tram tuoi” (“Long life of 100 years); “An khang thinh vuong” (“Security, good health and prosperity”); and “Van su nhu y (“May myriad things go according to your will”).

New Year’s Day is viewed as everyone’s birthday; the Vietnamese do not acknowledge the exact day they were born.

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TASTY TREATS

Here are some of the traditional foods that you’ll be able to sample at the Vietnamese Festival:

>> Banh chung and banh tet: Sticky rice cakes filled with pork and/or mung beans and wrapped in banana or dong (Phrynium placentarium) leaves. Symbolizing Earth, square-shaped banh chung is more popular in northern Vietnam while cylindrical banh tet, symbolizing the moon, is more popular in the south.

>> Banh it: Sticky, pyramid-shaped rice cake filled with shredded coconut meat or mung beans.

>> Bun bo hue: Beef broth, rice vermicelli and a balance of spicy, sour, salty and lemongrass flavors

>> Dua hanh: Pickled onions and cabbage usually served with tom kho (dried shrimp)

>> Gio cha: Vietnamese sausage

>> Hat dua: Roasted watermelon seeds

>> Mut: Candied snacks made with fruits and vegetables such as apple, orange, banana, persimmon, coconut, carrot, squash, ginger and pumpkin

>> Pho: Beef or chicken broth, rice noodles, meat and a few herbs

>> Thit heo kho: Pork and eggs stewed in coconut milk

>> Thit nuong: Barbecue meat

>> Thit xo xien: Meat skewers

>> Xoi gac: Red sticky rice

Cheryl Chee Tsutsumi is a Honolulu-based freelance writer whose travel features for the Star-Advertiser have won several Society of American Travel Writers awards.