Tet

[Vietnamese têt.]

Since 1885, speakers of English have known about the biggest annual celebration in Vietnam. In a book called France and Tongking: A Narrative of the Campaign of 1884, published in London that year, Sir James George Scott wrote: "The especial great season for every one, rich and poor, is the new year, the Tet."

Tet starts in January or February at the time of the full moon before spring planting. Officially it lasts three days, but since advance preparations are important, it often requires a week or more away from everyday activities like school and work. Houses are cleaned (so that the Kitchen God can give an approving report to the Jade Emperor) and decorated with gold banners, red ribbons, and colored lights. Food and wine are placed at the family altar to please the spirits of dead ancestors. The community celebration can include a parade with elaborate floats, and fireworks, song and dance.

It is said that the first visitor on the first day of Tet brings luck, good or bad, so many people take care to invite the right person to make that visit. Whatever happens that first day is said to set the pattern for the whole year.

With close to a million ethnic Vietnamese now living in the United States, Tet is now a more familiar celebration in this country as well.

We also have a grimmer reason to speak of Tet. Just as the first mention of Tet in English was related to the French military conquest of Vietnam in 1884, so the word gained military prominence in English in January 1968 when the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese attacked South Vietnamese cities in what was called the "Tet Offensive." They didn't succeed in overwhelming the South Vietnamese and U.S. forces, nor did they cause a "general uprising" of the southern population, but the Tet Offensive did turn the tide of the war and was a major step toward the ultimate North Vietnamese triumph.

Vietnamese is a Mon-Khmer language of the Austro-Asiatic language family. It has sixty-five million speakers in Vietnam, more than 85 percent of the population, and nearly a million more speakers each in Cambodia and the United States, the final resort of many refugees from the Vietnam War. Although the United States was deeply involved in Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s, no other words of Vietnamese have managed to become part of the general vocabulary of English.

(Vietnam) Lunar new year celebration which in 1968 marked the start of an offensive by the North Vietnameese Army to oust the Americans from Vietnam. While fighting was fierce is was a failure for the Communist forces.

The noun has one meaning:

Meaning #1: Vietnamese New Year; observed for 3 days after the 1st full moon after January 20th

This article is about the Finnish work practice program. For the Vietnamese festival, see Tết. For the medical technology, see transcutaneous energy transmission.

TET/PRAO (Työelämään tutustuminen in Finnish language, Praktisk arbetslivsorientering in Swedish, lit. visit to the working life) is a part of the Finnish primary schooling system where students experience working at a real workplace.

The program is two weeks long and takes place in 8th or 9th grade, depending on the school. Each student can choose his or her working place independently, and has to sign a contract with both the school and the workplace chosen. Often, students end up working with a relative or friend.

Students working in the program are normally entitled to one free meal per day, but they receive no salary or allowance. Costs incurred by the workplace are paid by the Finnish state.

The purpose of the program is to introduce students to real-life working environments. In Vantaa, Finland, TET students normally have a six-hour workday, with only one required 30-minute lunch break. Rules require that no heavy lifting (over 15 kg) be part of normal labour, and there are other specifications. (Vantaa).

This Finland-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)