On New Years Day, the people of Vietnam choose their actions and activities carefully, as they believe the events on New Years Day determine their luck and fortune for the coming year.
Tet is the celebration of the Vietnamese New Year. It literally means the first morning of the first day of the New Year. In 2009 it will be the year of the Buffalo.
The Tet celebrations last for 3 days (starting on 26th January in 2009), with the national holiday occurring for 3 of those days, but can be longer in some parts of Vietnam.
As part of the celebrations, homes are cleaned as a symbolic gesture of cleaning the all the bad luck from the previous year, and can include changing appearances of houses (such as painting) as well as family members receiving new clothes and shoes.
Le Tru Tich is a special midnight ceremony held on New Years Eve (25th January 2009) and serves to see out the old year and bring in the New Year. During these celebrations, gongs and other festive items are used as part of the celebration.
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Tet is the festival which epitomizes the identity of Vietnamese culture. Although the Lunar New Year is observed in all of East Asia influenced by Chinese civilisation, each country celebrates it in a way peculiar to that country by making it conform to its psyche and historico-geographical conditions. Many rites, festivities and practices of Vietnamese TET are quite distant variants of the Chinese model, and are even original creations which hark back to myths and legends of the pre-Chinese period. 
