Bella Nguyen, left, and Lena Nguyen hold Vietnamese flags as they and other children dance during a celebration of the Vietnamese New Year on Sunday afternoon at the American Legion Post 95 in East Ridge.Members of the local Vietnamese community weren’t sweeping their homes in preparation for the new year – a tradition meant to eliminate bad energy from the previous year – but they did celebrate Sunday with plenty of singing and eating.
Several hundred people gathered at the American Legion Post 95 off Ringgold Road to welcome the Year of the Rabbit. Based on the lunar calendar, the year officially starts Thursday. The celebration is known as Tet.
“The new year is very important for us. It’s like Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s of the Western society put together,” said Khanh Nguyen, a Vietnam native who moved to the United States in 1994.
“It’s a time when we as families come home and hope that it will be better than the previous year,” he added.
A group of children sang in Vietnamese while carrying a yellow flag with three horizontal red stripes known as the South Vietnamese flag.