IELTS Speaking – Ngày lễ truyền thống

Without question, it's Tet, the Lunar New Year. It's the one time of year when almost everyone returns to their hometown, offices close for about a week, and cities that are normally chaotic become surprisingly quiet. For most Vietnamese people, it's much more significant than any other holiday.

I usually try to get out of the city, either to visit my grandparents in the countryside or to take a short trip with friends. Recently, though, I've started staying at home sometimes, because everyone travels at the same time, so the roads are jammed and hotel prices go through the roof.

For big traditional occasions, definitely with family, because that's what gives them meaning. But for things like birthdays or New Year's Eve, I'd rather be with friends, since it's more relaxed and we can stay out late without worrying about formal etiquette. So I suppose I like a balance of both.

Yes, the Mid-Autumn Festival. As a kid, I absolutely loved it: carrying a star-shaped lantern around the neighbourhood, watching lion dances and eating mooncakes. Now that I'm an adult, it's mainly about buying mooncakes as gifts for clients, so it's lost a lot of its magic for me.

I'd like to describe Tet, or the Lunar New Year, which is by far the most important festival in Vietnam. It falls in late January or February, depending on the lunar calendar, and the celebrations officially last a few days, although in practice the festive mood lasts for weeks. The preparation is almost as important as the holiday itself. About a month beforehand, families start cleaning their houses from top to bottom, because people believe you should sweep away the bad luck of the old year. They buy peach blossom branches or kumquat trees to decorate the home, and many families spend a whole day wrapping banh chung, the square sticky rice cakes, and then boiling them overnight. On New Year's Eve, people gather to make offerings to their ancestors and watch fireworks at midnight. During the first days of the year, we visit relatives, neighbours and teachers, wish them good health, and give children red envelopes with lucky money. Tet matters so much because it's about reunion. Many people work far from home, sometimes abroad, and this is the one time they make every effort to come back. It's also a moment to honour ancestors and start afresh, so it combines family, gratitude and hope in a way no other holiday does.

To some extent, I think they are. Before major festivals, shops are flooded with expensive gift boxes, and there's a lot of pressure to spend money in order to look generous. Some people feel the occasion has become more about shopping than about family or tradition. On the other hand, commercialisation also keeps certain customs visible, especially for young people living in cities. So the meaning isn't disappearing completely; it's just competing with consumerism.

I think festivals offer a shortcut to understanding a culture. Instead of just looking at monuments, visitors get to experience music, food and customs first-hand, often alongside local people. Festivals are also naturally welcoming: during celebrations, people tend to be more relaxed and generous, so foreigners feel included. For example, tourists who join in Holi in India or the lantern festival in Hoi An often describe it as the highlight of their trip.

I'd support a few more, though not too many. Extra holidays give people time to rest and see their families, which benefits mental health and can even boost domestic tourism. However, every day off has an economic cost, and small businesses in particular may struggle to pay staff for days when nobody is working. A sensible compromise might be to spread existing holidays more evenly across the year instead of grouping them all together.

Festivals are one of the main ways traditions are passed from one generation to the next. Children learn songs, dances and recipes not from books but by taking part, year after year. Festivals also create demand for traditional crafts, like lantern-making or calligraphy, which might otherwise die out. And because they bring communities together, they strengthen people's sense of identity, reminding them where they come from, even when daily life is very modern.