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Lunar new Year might bring to mind festivaLs and
fireworks, but I’ve always associated it with a kind of isolation.
Long before the pandemic, long before the rest of America
learned about sriracha and pho, I grew up in a Vietnamese
refugee family in a mostly white town in Michigan.
We knew what it meant to be at once invisible and too
visible. But at least once a year, on Tet, that racial isolation felt
self-chosen; this holiday, the most important day of the year,
seemed to be just for us. I could stay home from school, forget
about homework and chores. Collect red envelopes filled
with money. Eat fried spring rolls, sticky rice cakes, pickled
leeks, dried coconut and persimmons, all kinds of treats. My
grandmother would cook and prep for days. Sometimes we’d
go to the Buddhist temple she helped establish; sometimes
we’d visit one of the few other Vietnamese families nearby.
Everyone we saw looked like us. I didn’t talk to my white
friends and classmates about this holiday, and they didn’t ask.
It’s not that I felt ashamed; I just didn’t feel like sharing.
Since then, I’ve watched Lunar New Year become known to
most Americans as Chinese New Year. I’ve watched it become
an activity in my kids’ schools, a lesson in ethnicity by way
of dumplings, fried rice, fortune cookies—whatever seems
vaguely Asian, like that wonton font we can’t seem to get away
from. I wouldn’t say that we Asians in America are used to
being essentialized by food, but we’re never surprised by it.
This is the second year in a row of canceled parades,
the second Lunar New Year of looking for the comfort in
being hidden away. And there is some. When you’re Asian,
it can be a relief not to have to see strangers staring at you.
“Wuhan!” someone yelled in my
direction last summer. I was in my
car; he was on the sidewalk. I rolled
up the window. I don’t know if that’s
an extreme example; I would say it’s a
common one. A reminder of why it’s
important to have a holiday for us, to
celebrate a new year when isolation is
both imposed and chosen.I remember realIzIng as a kid that
the date of every Lunar New Year was
determined by the actual new moon.
It felt surprisingly literal, my first lesson
in how calendars are made. This past
year, most of us have had to re-evaluate
how we spend our days. Maybe that’s
why I’ve been thinking so much about the
arrival of the new year: how civilizations
have relied on the moon to make sense of
time and its passage; that we have a need
to find order and start fresh.
So, what am I planning for Feb. 12,
this quiet ushering in of the Year of the
Buffalo, also known as the Year of the
Ox? I can tell you that I’ll be on Zoom
with my extended family. I’ll be talking
with my kids about goals and wishes for
this year. I might get some of the foods
my grandmother used to get, make
some foods she used to make. Though
I don’t follow many superstitions,
I definitely won’t cut my hair. I haven’t
done so for months anyway, and will
wait months more. With any luck,
I will remember to buy yellow flowers.
And when my kids wake up on Tet,
I know they’ll feel the same excitement
I remember feeling. They’ll rush over
to me and say, “Chuc mung nam moi,”
in order to receive the red envelopes
they know are due to them. It’s part
tradition, part ritual, part ordinary
way of life. Just for us.
On Lunar New Year, the moon is
always invisible. That’s what a new
moon is. Impossible not to read meaning
into that, so I do. And that’s how I know
that whatever is invisible is merely
hidden; that light will always rise.
We just have to wait. Think about all the
times, alone at night, you’ve looked out
a window to find the moon. We count
the days, watching that light get bigger.
We hope for a better year for everyone.Nguyen is the author of the novels Short
Girls and Pioneer GirlESSAY
The comfort of Lunar
New Year in isolation
By Beth Nguyen
I didn’t talk
to my white
friends and
classmates
about this
holiday,
and they
didn’t ask