As the Lunar New Year arrives, it often gets flattened into “Chinese New Year.” The calendar is shared, but the expression isn’t. Vietnam celebrates Tết, Korea celebrates Seollal, Taiwan celebrates Lunar New Year, and each carries its own customs, foods, and meaning.
This year, Lunar New Year lands on Feb 17, 2026.
Vietnam and China have traded culture for over 2,000 years. Still, the Vietnamese expression of Tết has its own signatures: warmth and momentum, built around home, the altar, and the first days as a template.
In Vietnamese customs, the house is cleaned before the turn, then protected after it. It’s a reset: clear clutter, settle debts, finish unfinished tasks, make the home ready to receive the new year. Then, once the year turns, you stop “moving things out.” No sweeping luck out the door on day one.
That’s why the threshold matters. The first person to enter, xông đất, is treated like the opening note of the year. Their energy is believed to set the tone: lightness or tension, ease or friction, momentum or stagnation. Some families choose that person intentionally. Others make sure a steady family member is first.
Food follows the same logic. Many families eat ăn chay (vegetarian) on mùng one to start clean and quiet: lighter body, calmer mind, fewer sharp edges.
Lì xì, known in Chinese as hóngbāo (red envelope), is small and precise: money paired with words aimed at health, luck, and forward motion. The rules around it follow the same first-days logic. Crisp new bills, polite restraint, no tearing it open in front of the giver, keep it close before spending. Some families tuck it into a wallet. Some even sleep with it under a pillow on New Year’s night, especially for kids, like luck should be the first thing you wake up holding.
The superstition isn’t irrational. It’s how the first days get steered: less conflict, less breakage, less scarcity talk. Protect the mood. Protect the household. Protect the story you’re stepping into.
