(PLO)- Internet, Facebook, YouTube and smartphones have brought Tet closer to my parents when they were still struggling to make a living abroad.
Early in the morning, my father staggered out of the house with his old backpack. Germany in the last days of the year the weather is very cold, the trees are bare and thin, preparing to welcome the snow in winter. The old backpack has been hanging on my father’s back for many years, sometimes carrying a bunch of vegetables and food he bought from the supermarket, sometimes carrying some wild mushrooms, green apples, wild plums that he picked for me on the way. walk every morning.
The old days of the holidays…
My father left his hometown – the port of Hai Phong which in his mind is a region full of personality but full of affection – nearly four decades ago. He came to Germany with empty hands and an iron will that as long as he was determined and brave, he would reap the rewards. From selling clothes to helping the restaurant and now opening a restaurant, my father is committed to anything, as long as the hope of prosperity and well-being is still intensely nurtured in his heart and mind. .
The days when it was cold and cut to the flesh, the snow was knee-deep, so white that it was impossible to know which was heaven and which was earth. The days you have to get up early to clean up, or stay up late to prepare for the next day’s work. My father’s youth slept very short, a few hours, and spent a lot of time working for a living.
Decades of years away from home is the time my father spent Tet away from home. A year has 365 days, only the afternoon of Christmas Day (ie, December 24th of the solar calendar) is he off, because on that day people and families reunite, gather around the Christmas table and celebrate the New Year, so The restaurant is also closed due to lack of customers. I once said to my father, “In Germany, we don’t seem to have Tet at home”, he said, “Yes! Tet is far away.”
In Germany, the biggest holiday of the year is Christmas, which lasts until New Year. However, even though I was born and raised in Germany, I did not feel the special occasion of this occasion like Tet in Vietnam (VN) that my father often told. The traditional Tet holiday in Vietnam is a weekday in Germany, everyone is working. Although some Vietnamese groups have parties, everything is quick and monotonous. It’s difficult to have Vietnamese New Year in the heart of Germany, especially when the people you love are too far away.
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Many families thanks to smartphones can organize parties online. Illustration: FREEPIK |
… With a lot of nostalgia
My father often drinks wine. At the end of the year, after a few full glasses of wine, he quietly went to his room to cover with a blanket and watch television, feeling the Tet atmosphere rushing in every street and alley in Hai Phong, Hanoi, Saigon or somewhere in VN. The North has peach blossoms, the South has apricots, where they pack Chung cake, some make banh tet, this house makes frozen meat, the other house cooks braised meat with eggs or bitter melon soup… In Germany, there are delicious dishes and strange things. Newspapers, radios, and YouTubers who report on Tet he also know.
One day, when I opened my computer to watch YouTube, my father nodded that Tet in Vietnam is getting more and more bustling and new. Because Vietnam is now a hundred times more developed than the days when he started carrying a suitcase with a few old clothes to the airport with a green age, no silver hair. Now people not only celebrate Tet, but also play Tet, enjoy Tet, enjoy Tet in their own ways, with their own beliefs; No longer thinking much about being full, but thinking about entertaining and beautifying with hundreds of thousands of different activities. The family organizes tourism (domestic and foreign), some people tell stories about festivals, where they arrange parties, where they go to charity…
When I was a kid, I only heard about Tet from my father since his childhood living in Vietnam. It is an occasion for people to return to work far away to reunite with their families; was the occasion when children like me were able to buy new clothes; is “on the 30th day of Tet, meat hangs in the house”; lucky money, congratulating each other for the new year… In the old days, my parents, even in Germany, made a tray of rice to worship their ancestors and then sat down to think about it in Hai Phong, my grandmother and uncles, aunts, cousins and cousins. what is mine doing. Far away, sometimes apart for several years, my father received news of the family.
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Thanks to digital means, families can often see each other and talk to each other. Artwork: TIRACHARDZ/FREEPIK |
Now Tet is closer
Tet, like my father, also experienced days of hunger, lack of clothing and loneliness, and then gradually became affluent, happy and warm. However, Tet is not getting older like my father, but on the contrary, Tet is younger and more vibrant than before. Tet now has the Internet, social networks and smartphones (smartphones). The whole family gathers around the phone on New Year’s Eve in Vietnam (ie in the evening according to German time) to call grandmother and relatives; also congratulate, chat and even… lucky money online. Family meals are also often livestreamed or called online so that my family can feel the atmosphere of the Tet holidays in my hometown.
In Germany, many families, like mine, are getting used to “eating Tet online”. The advent of hyper-connected media has brought emotions, excitement and images, sounds, and flavors… Tet holiday in Vietnam closer to families with two Vietnamese homelands. and Germany like us. My dad knows how to open YouTube, online TV on the Internet to see how this year’s Tet in Vietnam is, what’s new, what’s good – unique – strange or watch movies, reality TV shows, Tao Quan in Tet season to relieve homesickness.
Over the past few decades, I know that he is a strong man and is also used to celebrating Tet away from home. However, the older you get, the stronger the nostalgia for Tet. Well, more precisely nostalgic about the family, about my grandmother who is now over 80 years old, about my father’s brothers who are now old enough to be sui, but in the past few decades, I have only met my father a few times. So being able to “touch” Tet from this side of the ocean helps him feel more comfortable and somewhere – I feel – he feels a little less tormented – the anguish of a son far away from home, far away His family has followed him for many years.
ANH NGOC (FROM GERMANY)