Wanting to personally prepare meticulous Tet gifts, while “subtly showing off” their dexterity, many young people are making their own candied fruits and sweet treats for their families, for relatives and friends, or for small-scale sales.

In Hue, the traditional Lunar New Year “Tet” does not arrive with fanfare. It begins quietly in the kitchen, from a pot of banh tet (a cylindrical sticky rice cake with mung beans and pork) glowing over the fire, from the warm scent of ginger, from a jar of mixed pickled vegetables. Just by looking at these dishes, people in Hue know that Tet is very near.

On October 30, Mr. Nguyen Chi Tai, Deputy Secretary of the City Party Committee, Vice Chairman of Hue City People's Committee, visited and encouraged people at a charity kitchen located at Truong An Primary School, Thuan Hoa Ward.

Though without the vibrant flowers adorning the streets and alleys, nor the sweet confections filling every kitchen, the excitement and national pride on Independence Day remain undiminished in the hearts of every Vietnamese citizen. This sacred and eternal spirit continues to shine through the colours of the flag and the clothes worn in the rhythm of today's life.

Thua Thien Hue is a region with many dishes honored in the “Journey to find the cultural value of typical Vietnamese cuisine” including Hue beef noodles, tapioca dumplings stuffed with roasted pork sweet soup, mussel rice, tapioca dumplings, mixed vegetarian fig salad, vegetarian rice steamed in lotus leaf.