Lantern Festival - Full moon of the first lunar month

Rằm tháng Giêng is the 15th day of the first lunar month, the first full moon after Tết Nguyên đán. "Nguyên" means first and "tiêu" means night, so Nguyên tiêu is the full moon night that opens the new year. The old calendar counts three great full moons, the tam nguyên: Thượng nguyên in the first month, Trung nguyên in the seventh and Hạ nguyên in the tenth.

The Lantern Festival came from China, where people lit lamps on the first full moon to pray for good harvests and peace. In Vietnam it blended with ancestor worship and Buddhism and became one of the most important full moons of the year, prepared for by many families almost as carefully as Tết itself.

A folk saying holds that a whole year of visits to the Buddha cannot match the first full moon. It reflects the strong custom of visiting pagodas at the start of the year: on the night of the 14th and the day of the 15th, pagodas across the country fill with people lighting incense, listening to chanting and praying for their families.

Many pagodas hold prayers for peace and star-offering ceremonies between the 8th and the 15th of the first month. In folk belief each person is influenced by a guardian star every year, so an offering at the start of the year expresses the hope that things will go smoothly. Visitors are asked to keep a calm mind, dress properly and avoid pushing at the temple gate.

A year of visits to the Buddha cannot match the first full moon.

Vietnamese proverb

In 1948, during the resistance against French colonial rule at the Việt Bắc base, President Hồ Chí Minh wrote the classical Chinese poem "Nguyên tiêu" on the night of the first full moon. It records him and his comrades discussing military affairs on a boat in the middle of a river, under a bright spring moon.

The translation by the poet Xuân Thuỷ has been learned by heart by generations of students. The moon, river, water and spring sky merge into one, while the line about discussing military matters gives the night the spirit of the resistance. The poem has become inseparable from the first full moon in Vietnamese memory.

The spring full moon shines wide and high, the spring river blends with the spring sky.

Hồ Chí Minh, Nguyên tiêu (1948), translated by Xuân Thuỷ

In 2003 the Vietnam Writers' Association held the first Vietnam Poetry Day at the Temple of Literature in Hà Nội, on the first full moon. The choice continued the old tradition of admiring the moon and reciting poems on Nguyên tiêu night, and the spirit of spring poetry in Vietnamese literature.

Since then the Poetry Day has been held every year in Hà Nội and many provinces, with poem pillars, poetry courtyards, recitation evenings and meetings between poets and readers. For many people it is a rare moment in the year to pause, read a poem and welcome spring through words.

Today the first full moon offering remains an important rite in many families. Alongside the meal offered to the ancestors, many homes add a vegetarian tray for the Buddha. In Hội An and some old quarters, lanterns are floated on the river and electric lights are switched off so the lanterns and the moon can shine.

The first full moon also marks the end of the Tết season. After this day families take down the Tết decorations, working people return to a steady rhythm and businesses settle into the first quarter. Many people use the full moon to set goals for the year, a small promise to themselves under the first moon.