SAN JOSE, CALIF.—Lunar New Year’s coming up, and there are plenty of ways for everyone to join in the celebration, and San Jose having the largest Vietnamese population makes it a perfect place to celebrate Lunar New year. 

This Jan. 29 marks a new year on the Lunar New Year calendar. It’s celebrated in countries like China, Vietnam and Korea. However, this holiday is open to anyone. People clean their homes, enjoy special food, and give out red envelopes with money for good luck. 

With many people from Vietnam living in San Jose, it hosts exciting activities and festivals to show their culture and traditions, which allows many opportunities to celebrate. There’s many locations like Little Saigon Vietnam Town and Grand Century. These locations celebrate Tet having one of the biggest festivals enjoying music, performances and games. Making it easy to access cultural celebrations.

One popular activity during Lunar New Year celebrations is playing games with family. Some of these games are similar to ones in American culture. Sophomore Celine Huynh explains a game called “Lucky Chess.”

This game is similar to bingo, players receive boards with random numbers, and one person gets number tokens from a bag. The goal is to be the first to get five in a row on your board, and the person who does wins.Usually, everyone chips in a little bit of money and whoever wins gets the whole prize pool.

Huynh describes their feelings to the game saying, “My favorite activity for lunar new years is the ‘Lucky Chess’ game because it brings everyone together and I have a fun time with my friends and family.”

Another celebration that is done is also one done here at Silver Creek High School which is lion dancing. Lion dancing is believed to bring luck, and also ward off evil spirits. The loud noise and music is said to help scare away the spirits. 

Students at Silver Creek have an after school club that practices lion dancing to show their performances during Lunar New Year.

Sophomore Callie Do explains her affection towards this activity, “One of my favorite things to see during Lunar New Year is lion dancing. The activity is fun for kids and adults since it’s very interactive since the lions dance and interact with people which makes watching it fun and exciting.”

A popular game done during Lunar New Year’s Bầu cua cá cọp (Bowl-koo-ah kah-cawp). A game that is based on chance. There’s six pictures of different items which are usually deer, bowl, rooster, fish, crab and shrimp. Players bet money on any picture they want, and there’s a dealer that has three dice. The dice have all pictures on each side. The dealer covers the dice with a bowl and shakes the dice. After all bets are placed, he lifts the bowl revealing the winning images. 

This game is favored by sophomore Vivian Le. She said, “Bầu cua is not only about money. It brings me closer to my family and friends during Lunar New Year since this game gives me laughs and also suspense when we are trying to see who wins. It’s very funny with my family, and it’s overall my favorite.”