Chuc Mung Nam Moi: New Year Paintings: a folk art celebration
Tet Roast Beef Salad with Spring Onion Oil
A folk art celebration
Chuc Mung Nam Moi - Happy New Year! Welcome to the February 2004 edition of the Vietnam Art Gallery newsletter.
Tet is the announcement of the Lunar New Year, and to describe its equivalent in western countries, think of Christmas, Easter, New Year and birthdays all rolled into one week long festival.
We're pleased you're with us this month as we talk about Tet and the new year. As always, click here to view a special sampling of our paintings!
=============== CONTENTS ===============
- Chuc Mung Nam Moi - Happy New Year! — Good fortune to you and your family! Go >>
- February's Feature Artist — February's feature artist: Manh Phu. The girls in Manh Phu's paintings wear the Ao dai - a national dress of Vietnam both beautiful and functional. Go >>
- 2004 is the Year of the Monkey — For people and primates alike, what will 2004 hold for you? If you were born in any of the following years... 1920, 1932, 1944, 1956, 1968, 1980, 1992, (2004) read on! Go >>
- New Year Paintings: a folk art celebration — Folk art is an important component of a people's national culture. In Vietnam the folk art of the Kinh (Viet) national majority from the delta region and the ethnic minorities in the highlands forms part of a multinational culture which has deep historical roots. Go >>
- Tet Roast Beef Salad with Spring Onion Oil — Lavish meals are not cooked on New Year's Day. Instead, food prepared the day before is simply reheated, and casual snacking is the order of the day. But on the day after New Year's, a celebration of feasting begins. Go >>
- Featured Spotlight — Minh Phu, May, Phu Nhieu. Go >>
== Chuc Mung Nam Moi - Happy New Year! ==
Tet is the announcement of the Lunar New Year, and to describe its equivalent in western countries, think of Christmas, Easter, New Year and birthdays all rolled into one week long festival. It's a time when families reunite in the hope of good fortune for the coming year, and ancestral spirits are welcomed back into the family home. And Tet is also a huge birthday party, as it's everyone's official birthday, where on this year, you become one year older!
The exact dates for Tet vary every year, as they are calculated by the lunar and solar calendars. This year, Tet began on January 23rd and the celebrations are still in full swing. Many people will celebrate Tet for most of the month of February.
Tet Nguyen Dan literally means the first morning of the first day of the new year. Painstaking care is given to starting the year in a good fashion, since it is believed the first day and the first week of the new year will determine ones fortunes for the rest of the year. To put things in order for the New Year, houses are painted and cleaned. Everybody buys new clothes to wear on the first day of Tet, and debts are paid so that people feel they are starting afresh.
The first three days are the official holiday period, but many people take the whole week off. There are various rituals performed before and during Tet, including the visiting of cemeteries, paying off debts, and everything cleaned in order to start the year with a clean slate. The annual Tet flower market in Ho Chi Minh (Saigon) is particularly impressive, as with the area around Pho Hang Dau and Pho Hang Ma in Hanoi.
Tet is similar to Christmas Day, in terms of the gathering of family, and generally is a fairly quiet affair. But for other days of the Tet Festival, parties, street gatherings, dragon parades, fireworks, food stalls and puppet theatre create much movement and colour to mark this important event in the Viet Nam calendar.
Pork pie, or Gio, is an indispensable dish on the dining table during Tet. Gio is no longer a luxury food, as it was in the past. Rice for Tet is also carefully selected, the most preferred being from Hai Hau district in the northern province of Nam Dinh.
Flowers and ornamental trees are an icon of Tet. Peach blossoms harmonise well with the drizzle and the chilly weather in the north, while yellow apricots seem even brighter in the sunlight of the south. Flower displays are a popular custom and an art. Nguyen Phong Chau, a Hanoi resident said, "Each region has its own kind of flower, representing the spirit and soul of local residents. For example, peach blossoms in the north and apricots in the south. Flowers are not only a New Year home decoration, but they symbolise people's Tet wishes for a new year of prosperity, health and luck".
We wish you all happiness, health and wealth for 2004 - and to help bring you luck, be sure to learn the phrase, "Chuc Mung Nam Moi" - Happy New Year!
=== Our artist of the month: Manh Phu ===
The girls in Manh Phu's paintings wear the ao dai - a national dress of Vietnam both beautiful and functional. The younger women and students wear the white ao dai, which symbolizes purity.
Manh Phu - Vietnamese Girls 27 - $200
Click to see more paintings by this artist.
== 2004 is the Year of the Monkey ==
For people and primates alike, what will 2004 hold for you? If you were born in any of the following years... 1920, 1932, 1944, 1956, 1968, 1980, 1992, (2004) read on!
Those born in the year of the Monkey, are very capable people. They are known for their sociable disposition and have an active social life. Monkeys are generally sympathetic and trusting, and expect that they are granted the same confidence. They can forgive, but never forget and can be revengeful if somebody wrongs them more than once - so beware!. They are patient and skilled at timing things just right, waiting for their turn for the perfect opportunity and nothing can stop them from achieving a goal.
Monkeys are warm and inviting individuals, good at making people comfortable and even the most shy individuals open up to them. They have a very attractive openness, and as a partner they are reliable, adaptable and cheerful. They are good at assessing risk and financial problems, and with their intelligence and tenacity, Monkeys are virtually unsinkable!
They are the ultimate diplomats and slip in and out of difficulties with ease. Monkeys are always out in front! Dragons and Rats will match up best with the monkey. Famous people like Will Smith, Julius Caesar, Lord Byron, Elizabeth Taylor, Leonardo da Vinci, Harry S. Truman, and Jennifer Anniston are signed under the monkey.
== New Year Paintings: a folk art celebration ==
FOLK ART is an important component of a people's national culture. In Vietnam the folk art of the Kinh (Viet) national majority from the delta region and the ethnic minorities in the highlands forms part of a multinational culture which has deep historical roots.
An important aspect and media of expression of folk art in Vietnam is woodcuts, which constitute a treasure for collectors and researchers. The art for printing from woodblocks dates back a long time, being handed down from one generation to the next.
Traditionally, on the occasion of the Lunar New Year, brightly-coloured woodprints are on sale everywhere: from country to town to the remote highland areas - enhancing the joyful mood of springtime celebrations. These are called Tranh Tet (New Year Paintings).
Lai Long - The Traditional Music - $200
Click to see more paintings by this artist.
Folk woodprints are made in many places, either as an industry that whole villages take part in, or by members of individual households. The wood cut scenes always represent social life. Vietnamese folk woodprints display great spontaneity of expression. Both their content and form show distinct originality: within their meaning and composition, motif, execution and palette, a sharp sense of playfulness in treatment can be witnessed.
Besides woodcuts, Vietnamese folk art includes paintings painted by members of ethnic minorities living in the northem highlands, such as the Tay Nung, Zao, and Caolan peoples. These Paintings, almost exclusively religious in inspiration and meaning, are linked with Buddhist or Taoist behefs but carry specific features of the art of each group, derived from their culture and customs. For example, a painting may be painted for a couple who are praying to fall pregnant with either a son or daughter. An effigy of Ban Co, the mythical ancestor of the Zao, is created to be worshipped for the protection he bestowed on his people during their southward migration in the immemorial past. The image of Than nong, the God of Agriculture, is present during the traditional rituals of the "setting up the Granary" ceremony which opens every farming season among the Caolan.
Although involving prayers to a multitude of gods, fairies, Taoist and Buddhist deities, and to ghosts and demons in the heavens and on earth, those rituals and festivities are mostly inspired by the people's wish for bumper crops, and are occasions for popular celebrations.
Religious paintings also feature at funeral ceremonies to express the profound wishes of the bereaved to protect the spirit of their loved one from the torments of hell and guide them to the Buddhist Nirvana or the Taoist world of immortals. Some paintings, describing the frightful punishments meted out in hell to those who have committed serious crimes, warn against wrong doings, commend ethical behaviour, and extol thoughts and actions that are just.
Vietnamese folk paintings and woodprints have become an artistic expression of lasting value, contributing to the development of national culture and art. They remain a source of cultural pride for the Vietnamese nation.
== Tet Roast Beef Salad, with Spring Onion Oil ==
Tet, the celebration of the New Year, is a fabulous event in Vietnam. Fireworks explode in the skies for days, and revelry fills the streets. During Tet, families are connected with both their ancestors and their future progeny, for time is observed as being a single continuous chain and the human spirits are embodied in its links.
Lavish meals are not cooked on New Year's Day. Instead, food prepared the day before is simply reheated, and casual snacking is the order of the day. But on the day after New Year's, a celebration of feasting begins. Holiday specialties are prepared throughout the day for serving that night. Course after delectable course is eaten with great festivity, and beef is usually a featured entree of this meal.
This dish borrows from many of the classic Vietnamese beef dishes, in which thinly sliced beef is seasoned with aromatic sauces and wrapped with lettuce or other leaves. Since the rare roast beef used here is purchased from a delicatessen, rather than being homemade, it is appropriate as a noncooked meal on Tet. For a near-instant meal anytime, the beef combines quickly and easily with mixed greens and noodles to for a hearty main course salad.
A special element of this dish is the use of Spring Onion Oil. One of the many condiments featured in Vietnamese cooking, it will keep refrigerated for two weeks. Use it to flavor fish, vegetables, soups and simple steamed chicken.
Salad Ingredients
- 1 large cucumber, peeled if waxed
- 1 large carrot, peeled
- 1/2 pound spinach, washed, trimmed and dried
- 2 limes
- 2 tablespoons fish sauce (nuoc mam)
- 1/2 teaspoon sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
- 1/2 teaspoon toasted sesame oil
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- 1 piece ginger, 1/2-inch in length, peeled and minced
- 1/4 cup Spring Onion Oil [see end]
- 1/2 pound rare roast beef, thinly sliced
- 3 tablespoons crushed toasted peanuts
- Cilantro [coriander] sprigs
- Fresh cracked pepper
- Salt
Slice the cucumber into thin rounds. Lightly salt the rounds and leave in a colander to drain for at least 15 minutes. Slice the carrot into thin rounds and set aside. When the cucumbers have drained, squeeze out the excess water with your hands.
Cut 1 lime into wedges and set aside. In a small bowl, mix together the juice of the remaining lime, the fish sauce, sugar, red pepper flakes, sesame oil, garlic and ginger. Toss the cucumbers and carrots with this sauce and let them sit 5 minutes.
Toss the spinach with 2 tablespoons of the Spring Onion Oil, or amount to taste. Arrange on a platter. Pour the cucumber and carrot mixture, with the dressing, on top of the spinach. Arrange the roast beef slices around the edges of the salad. Spoon 1 to 2 tablespoons of the remaining Spring Onion Oil (with toasted onion bits) on top of the roast beef. Serve topped with the toasted peanuts, sprigs of cilantro, fresh cracked pepper and the reserved wedges of lime on the side.
Spring Onion Oil
- 1/4 cup canola oil
- 4 large chopped green onions, including green part
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
Heat the oil in a saucepan on high until very hot. Add the green onions and salt (be careful: oil will splatter). Fry the onions until they become crisp and the edges begin to brown. Turn off the heat and let the green onions continue to cook in the hot oil until they become very brown. Drizzle sparingly on salads, cooked chicken, noodles, soups and other dishes, sprinkling a bit of the green onion bits on top. (This recipe doubles or triples easily. Seal the oil in a glass jar and refrigerate up to two weeks.)
==== Featured Pieces ====
Minh Phu's beautiful, fertile golds, pinks and reds make us imagine what Hanoi must feel like in the fall, resonating with sounds and smells of home, family, animals, food, planting and most importantly, kite-flying!
Minh Phu - "Naive 3" - $300 - more >>
Gouache on board. An abstract work in close up of a leaf rapidly plunging from an autumnal tree. The skeletal leaf is quite ghostly.
May - "Autumn" - $150 - more >>
Phu Nhieu captures in still life the aura of simple lotus blooms, and the feeling of hot, moonless nights.
Phu Nhieu - "Moonless Night" - $1000 - more >>
Thank you for reading! We wish you peace and good fortune for the coming month!
============== Artist Roster ==============
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