Tết

Tết (Vietnamese: [tet̚˧˦], chữ Hán: 節), short for Tết Nguyên Đán (chữ Hán: 節元旦; lit. 'Festival of the first day'), is the most important celebration in Vietnamese culture. Tết celebrates the arrival of spring based on the Vietnamese calendar and usually falls on January or February in the Gregorian calendar.

Tết Nguyên Đán is not to be confused with Tết Trung Thu, which is also known as Children's Festival in Vietnam. "Tết" itself only means festival but it would generally refer to the Lunar New Year in Vietnamese, as it is often seen as the most important festival amongst the Vietnamese and the Vietnamese diaspora, with Tết Trung Thu regarded as the second-most important.

Vietnamese people celebrate Tết annually, which is based on a lunisolar calendar (calculating both the motions of Earth around the Sun and of the Moon around Earth). Tết is generally celebrated on the same day as Chinese New Year (also called Spring Festival), with the one-hour time difference between Vietnam and China resulting in the new moon occurring on different days. Rarely, the dates of Vietnamese and Chinese Lunar New Year can differ, such as in 1985, when Vietnam celebrated Lunar New Year one month before China. It takes place from the first day of the first month of the Vietnamese lunar calendar (around late January or early February) until at least the third day.

Tết is also an occasion for pilgrims and family reunions. They set aside the trouble of the past year and hope for a better and happier upcoming year. This festival can also be referred to as Hội xuân in vernacular Vietnamese, (from lễ hội, "festival", and mùa xuân, "spring").