Find out about Khai Ha holidays on the 7th day of the Lunar New Year

After the golden ceremony on the 3rd day of the Lunar New Year, January 7 is often considered the last day of the Lunar New Year festival.

In the afternoon of the 7th, Vietnamese people often performed the ceremony to lower trees, also known as Khai Ha ceremony to end Tet. After the 7th day, everyone must work hard, return to normal labor.

According to the old tradition, bamboo trees are about 5 - 6m long used as a tree. Trees are usually erected on December 23 or 30 Tet. The tree is buried tightly, on the top of the tree hangs a small circle and hangs many symbolic properties depending on the locality, customs and ethnicity.

There are places where people hang pineapple leaves, paper frames with green and red paper, talismans shaped like trigrams, votives, sentences or shapes of terracotta animals . Some places are small bags of betel and areca. flute, chisel (wind chimes), large and small pieces of metal, fronds, chicken feathers, garlic. When the wind blows, the wind and the metal pieces make a jingling sound like the wind spirit. The khanh, homonymous with "khanh" means "happy" with the meaning of the new year bringing happiness to the family. Under the foot of the tree there is sprinkle of lime and draw a bow and arrow.

Tree stated on New Year.(Photo: hanoitv).

In the book Gia Dinh Thanh Thong Chi of Trinh Hoai Duc, Tap Ha wrote: "The banquet (the last day of the year) every house in front of the big door has a bamboo plant, and a bamboo basket in a basket of betel nut lime, on the basket with gold and silver paper hanging, called "up mentioned" . means to represent the new year but alleviate the evil in the old year ".

All of these things mean exorcism, telling the devil that the land has mastered, not to harass and pray for a good, peaceful, lucky year.

The tree is also a symbol of authority, the one with the most power is the one with the highest tree.

Before lowering the tree, the landlord put a small table, on the display of a watermelon plate, some incense, flowers . right at the stump, indicating that the family had a happy Tet. After that, shake the tree if it loses all the dried leaves, then lower the tree down and bring the charm to hang at the door (the door on the front of the house).

For families who trade, on the 7th day of the Lunar New Year, they make sacrifices to pray and sell for good and prosperous business in the new year.

In the past few years, the custom of planting trees on Tet holiday has gradually lost and been replaced with the continuous play of peach blossom, apricot blossom day. Many young people now only know about the tree of the tree through the verses, proverbs such as:

Fat meat, pickled onions, red sentence

Tree Miraculous, green banh chung