“This significant gift helps our children have a good Tet” a resident in Vietnam’s northern province of Ha Giang said emotionally when he received a Tet gift from Tzu Chi Foundation just a few days ahead of the Lunar New Year. 

Tzu Chi Foundation offers Tet gifts to Ha Giang people in late January 2022. Photo: Tzu Chi Foundation

“I was afraid not to have fundamental things for this Tet due to impact of Covid-19. Therefore, the gift will enable us to have essential things for Tet, including banh chung (made from glutinous rice, mung bean, and pork), traditional food, some kinds of cake, peach blossom, and kumquat trees”, said Sam Van Tai, an inhabitant in Ha Giang’s Meo Vac District.

Tai is among more than 1,000 recipients in Ha Giang of Tet gifts worth VND1 million (US$44) in cash and 20 kg of rice each. This time, the donations worth VND1.5 billion (US$65,000) from Tzu Chi were distributed provincewide. 

Good tradition 

Giving Tet gifts to the poor is a meaningful deed when spring comes. It promotes the Vietnamese people’s “Lá lành đùm lá rách” tradition (Literally “healthy leaves envelop torn leaves.”

This tradition is well rooted across the nation, where the spirit of family interconnectedness remains most intact. It has been tempered and tested for centuries, but still remains popular today.

Editor-in-chief of Kinh Te & Do Thi Newspaper (4th left) offers Tet gifts to frontline health workers in Hoang Mai, Hanoi on Jan 20. Photo: Tran Long/ The Hanoi Times

The charity is commonly operated by media outlets. Almost all news agencies launch their own Tet donation programs and sustain the activities for years. Some prominent programs include “Tet nghia tinh” (Tet in gratitude)  by Kinh Te & Do Thi newspaper; “Tet vui cung nguoi ngheo” (Sharing with the poor) by Tuoi Tre and Vingroup, one of the leading private corporations in Vietnam; “Tet se chia” (Tet with sharing) by Nguoi Lao Dong; “Tam long vang” (Golden hearts) by Lao Dong.  

Notably, the Tet gifts by Kinh Te & Do Thi newspaper have not only been reached the poor but also frontline health workers. In the latest move, the media outlet provided hundreds of presents to medical staff in Hoang Mai District, downtown Hanoi. Editor-in-chief Nguyen Minh Duc of Kinh Te & Do Thi said caring for frontline health workers is as important as offering the new year donations to the poor thanks to their contributions to the city’s pandemic fight over the past time.   

Offering Tet gift is an annual program that Tzu Chi has run in Vietnam for the past decade. The Taiwan-based Buddhist foundation, one of the world’s largest charity organizations, has maintained the program by reaching the poor in different parts of the country.

This Tet occasion, Tzu Chi offered donations to thousands of poor households in Ho Chi Minh City on January 23-25, and in the Mekong Delta Province of An Giang on January 25-26.

Charity on the occasion of Tet has been run by both domestic and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and both local and overseas donors.

In another move, some 300 Tet gifts were handed over to people in Hoang Hoa District of Thanh Hoa Province on January 29. Le Thi Thu Hang, Assistant to foreign minister and Spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, offered the gifts which are from the Vietnamese Business Association in the UK. 

Nguyen Minh Phuong (R), Chairman of Bac Giang Group Media (BGG), offers Tet gifts to ethnic people in Ha Giang Province in late January 2022. Photo: Tzu Chi Foundation

Big hearts 

In the charity trip to Ha Giang, Tzu Chi’s delegation led by Phung Phan Tuyet vowed to meet beneficiaries with an aim to bring them not only presents but also convey best wishes to vulnerable people ahead of the new year. Despite a long journey to Ha Giang and traveling to two districts of Meo Vac and Quan Ba bordering China in cold spells, Ms. Tuyet connected with local authorities and offered rice and money to each recipient. 

Seeing the joy on the faces of recipients, Nguyen Minh Phuong, Tzu Chi’s volunteer, felt warm inside despite the coldness in the mountainous area. “I feel nothing but happiness the moments we presented the gifts to local residents,” Phuong told The Hanoi Times during the charity trip to Ha Giang on January 23-26.

He said nothing could be compared with the joy of the recipients and said happiness is resulted from doing something good to others. The happiness washed away tiredness after hour-long travel and countless difficulties on road to remote areas.

In addition to large-scale charity programs, dozens of charity funds have been launched to bring Tet to the poor, Bac Giang Group Media (BGG) is one of them. The company has been involved in charity works with big funds for years and founded its own one since the establishment of the company.

Sharing the reason why choosing Tet donations is one of the company’s major charitable works, BGG’s Chairman Nguyen Minh Phuong said Tet is a very special occasion for all Vietnamese people regardless of minorities so he wants to offer a happy Tet to vulnerable people. “Doing charity is not just to fulfill corporate social responsibility but also an opportunity for us to repay something to the community,” Phuong said before continuing his work as a volunteer of the worldwide charity foundation established in 1966 – Tzu Chi.