The year of the Dragon is about to begin. It will be the sixth lunar new year for ACCV & our friends in Hanoi. Each year has brought about a number of new developments for ACCV, while some were great, others have been quite challenging.

A definite highlight of last year was the development of our ACCV English Club at British Council. It has been a wonderful success for all involved. Dat & Hong have stepped up beautifully in their new role as leaders, with full support of Matt, Leath, Mai & Huong.

Dat & Hong take turns in preparing a report and sending it through to us. I always look forward to hearing from them. The latest Club topic was Traditional Vietnamese Tet, they did a great job and everyone had a wonderful time!

Here is Dat's report...

Please remember that this young man could not speak a word of English when we met him just a few years ago. Enjoy!

To welcome New Year atmosphere, everyone was very excited when they came to English club to talk about Traditional Tet of Vietnam. However, there were some students who couldn’t come to English club, because they live in other places where so are far from Hanoi city. They didn’t come back home for a long time and they wish to come back their homeland for a family reunion.

In discussion, most of students told that Tet holiday is the most important festival in Vietnam. It has become so familiar to the Vietnamese when spring arrives. During Tet holiday, you can see full of colorful flowers on all streets. Peaches, Apricots and Kumquats are specific trees of Vietnamese Lunar New Year. People believe that it can bring them the luck of life and fortune.

Besides, they also discussed about traditional customs in Tet holiday such as: visiting relative house on the first day of the New Year, ancestral worshipping, wishing New Year’s greetings, giving lucky money to children and elder people, opening the shops…etc. There are many different customs in Tet holiday. Each place has a different custom to welcome the New Year. In additional, they talked about special and meaning of foods in Lunar New year. Chung cake, Day cake, Five-fruit tray are symbol of land, sky and prosperity.

Activities

Every student was very surprised when they were playing an interesting game. The pictures were decorated by their hands. For blind people, it is very difficult to create a picture, but they did very well. It made them feel more confident and happy.