New Year’s wealth does not lie in money, material things. Rich Tet is when the whole family is healthy and reunited. In the first days of the new year, we should also put aside busyness and worries to fully enjoy precious time with family.
It’s hard to be rich all year round for three days of Tet
No matter how the times change, the traditional New Year is still an indispensable holiday in our lives. Tet is an occasion to rest, reunite with family, visit each other and give early spring greetings. Behind the peach blossoms and cakes is the hard livelihood of adults, who find Tet is no longer as fun as their childhood days.
The difficult mentality of being rich all year round for three days of Tet makes everyone want to try a little more to have a warm, decent, and full Tet. Tet is a happy day but it accidentally becomes a pressure on the shoulders of adults. From fathers and mothers who want their children to have a full Tet, to children who have grown up with the desire to ‘bring money home’.
Everyone wishes to have a rich Tet, but what is ‘rich’ really? Is it a full tray, expensive bonsai, thick lucky money? MV Rich Teta composition by Bui Cong Nam, through the voice of Luong Bich Huu, Dong Nhi and the author’s own voice, redefine the concept of ‘Rich Tet’.
Rich Tet is when the family spends time together
The beginning of the MV is the image of a mother all going back and forth, trying to get a few more orders so that this Tet can do a little more shopping. She stayed up late to sew a beautiful ao dai for her son, but she found her son dozing next to the neat words written on the red couplet: ‘I wish you good health to have time to play with you’.
What a daughter needs is not a gift, nor new clothes, but simply a mother to spend more time playing with her child. It turns out that ‘my richness is a healthy family, that my father and mother are still by my side’. Realizing this, the mother put the burden of living on her shoulders down, she closed the tailor shop early to welcome the ‘Big Tet’ with her children.
Tet is rich by cultural beauties
The memories of Tet of Vietnamese people are clearly depicted in each scene, from the market on the days adjacent to Tet with chickens, flower pots, dong leaves, sticky rice, etc. to images of people busy shopping for Tet. . Tet in the countryside, indispensable moments when the whole family gathers to pack banh chung, sit and watch the cake pot waiting for the morning sun or prepare a tray to offer to grandparents. On Tet days, the altar of the ancestors is decorated splendidly, with a tray of five fruits, jam cakes and Tet dishes. Under the house, the whole family gathers for a reunion meal, leisurely drinking tea, reviewing old stories.
Tet only comes when I return
With the pressure of ‘bringing money back to their mother’, many young people have come home late or stayed to plow through Tet to be paid double or triple. They also want to come home to celebrate Tet very soon, but the more they want, the more money they will earn so that their parents can have a full and prosperous Tet. The young man in the MV is no exception. Tet has arrived, he is still reeling from work, the meal is replaced by a loaf of bread. He was assigned an urgent job by his boss, but when he opened it, it was a letter from his mother and a stack of old, even parity money, in exchange for a few days of early leave for his children.
The mother’s letter will probably make many people pity:
Auntie, I’m Hien, the mother of Nam’s grandson. I ask your permission to allow my son Nam to have an early Tet holiday this year. For the past few years, he has just come home on the 30th or the 1st. He worked hard to earn more money and then he was tired for a whole New Year. I feel sorry for you.’
For my mother, Tet is not about how much money you bring, but just how much money you bring home. ‘A little more, a little more does not make you richer, but spend every minute, a little more to be together’. Do the children who are busy plowing and digging understand their parents’ hearts?
We have a whole year to wander around to make a living outside of life, but the whole year we only have a Tet holiday to take a long day off to be with our parents.
Tet is rich when the whole family is healthy
Through small, simple and touching stories, MV Rich Tet made us change our perspective to create a prosperous Tet for ourselves. No matter how difficult life is, no matter how hard the past year is, health is still the most important thing.
New Year’s wealth does not lie in money, material things. Rich Tet is when the whole family is healthy and reunited. In the first days of the new year, we should also put aside busyness and worries to fully enjoy precious time with family.