When spring comes to Nhuong Ban, the ethnic San Chi start preparing for Tet (lunar New Year Festival). They make traditional food to offer to their ancestors during the holiday. Like other ethnic groups, San Chi people also erect Neu poles from Vau trees – symbols of spring – to pray for peace and prosperity. High Neu poles, they believe, will promise good business. Any house without a pole is not considered to be really celebrating Tet.

Before lowering the Neu poles, the ethnic San Chi select an auspicious direction to pray for support from the spirits. Then the Tet holiday ends, the festival season begins.

Every year, on the 30^th day of the first lunar month, local residents organise a traditional festival in Na Pan Hamlet. Young people from the neighbouring areas of Nhuong Ban flock there to meet each other. One of the liveliest activities is singing between young men and women who express their feelings and declare their love. After the festival, they come back home with their promises of love and a new crop season in anticipation of a successful life in the future.

Spring is also the season of weddings. Today, the ethnic San Chi have free choice to choose their spouses. Their weddings are usually solemn but simple as the complicated and expensive traditional marriage customs are gradually changing to suit their present-day modern life.

Thuy Doi