"Tet Trung Thu is the Children's Festival, which comes at the time of the harvest moon. It is a grand party for the kids, who are given gifts and candy in abundance. The children are honored and reminded to show love and respect to one another and to be good citizens. The Moon Festival originates from a Vietnamese folk tale about a naughty boy named Cuoi, who always played tricks on people. Consequently, he was taken up to the moon to look after the heavenly cows all by himself. He is sad and lonely there, so every year at the full moon, children play drums, do the dragon dance, and march with lighted lanterns to let him know that they are thinking of him and wish for him to join them on earth. Moon cakes are a central feature of Tet Trung Thu. These cakes are made of rice flour and filled with peanuts, lotus seeds, duck egg yolks, raisins, green beans and more. At night, children march through the streets with their lanterns, playing cymbals and drums. Lanterns can be in the shape of fish, boats, dragons, or other animals. Many areas of Hanoi have a Dragon Dance; young men from the local dinh (dinh means the local community) dance through the streets. If you leave your door open, the dragon will enter and not leave until it has been appeased with an offering of money, which goes to the dinh. With the energy of the dancing young men and the loud beat of the drums, the children are delightfully frightened. Even for a grown -up, it can be a little hairy to offer money right into the mighty mouth of the dragon." Taken for the book, Hanoi Guide
Wanted you to get a feel for what we went through this past weekend. Josh's class put on a little performance of the Dragon Dance. It was cool. I wish I would have had a video camera with me. The music was amazing...I felt like I was in a club back in Austin. LOL And the little boy who dressed up as the dragon was a total HAM, which the kids all loved. Josh was a little em brassed, but this was his first time introduced to this festival. I thought he did just fine. Even Lizzie's class sang a song, but I couldn't get a good picture. :( But it was entertaining none-the-less. Those are the first set of pictures.
The next set of pictures are from our little community here called Ciputra. They put on a little show here as well. We missed the dragon dance ( we were so bummed), but we did get to play in the bounce house and see the different lanterns and people. Lizzie was a little overwhelmed and wouldn't get her picture taken with the man dressed up as the Pig. Haa haa We didn't stay to long, it was VERY loud, again club music playing, but it was still an experience that we enjoyed.
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