Overseas Vietnamese across nations celebrate Lunar New Year

Vietnamese expatriates in Australia, the UK, China, and Japan have organised gatherings at different scales to mark the Lunar New Year (Tet), the longest and important festival of their home country.

In Australia, many Vietnamese expats, businesspeople, and students met at a Tet celebration held by the Vietnamese Consulate General in New South Wales, Queensland and South Australia on January 30.

Delivering his remark, Consul General Nguyen Dang Thang highlighted the growth of Vietnam – Australia ties, especially in economy-trade, and the contributions of the Consulate General and the expatriates to Vietnam’s COVID-19 prevention and control last year.

The agency has mobilised the Australian Government to support Vietnam with 7.8 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine and so far raised more than 41,000 AUD from the Vietnamese communities in New South Wales, Queensland, Australia, and New Caledonia for Vietnam’s response to the pandemic.

In an interviewed with the Vietnamese News Agency, many Vietnamese expats in Australia shared their plans to return home given better controlled COVID-19 situations in the two nations over the past two months and the resumption of commercial flights between them.

In the UK, a similar celebration featuring traditional folk games and food took place on the same day with the participation of more than 1,000 Vietnamese expatriates.

Co-organised by the Vietnamese Family Partnership (VFP) and the Vietnam Business Association in the UK (VBUK) and supported by the Vietnamese Embassy, the event was the biggest of its kind of the community so far.  

Also gathering a large number of overseas Vietnamese, a festive event to mark Tet was held in Kunming, China by the Vietnamese Consulate General here.

In Japan, Tet celebrations took place among Vietnamese families who could not come back home on the occasion. They made traditional dishes and decorations to enjoy the festival together.

Lam Xuan Thanh, a Vietnamese living in Tokyo, said preparing for Tet is the way for the expats to help their children better understanding about Vietnamese culture./.