Various holiday activities have been scheduled to celebrate the lunar New Year (Tet) in Ho Chi Minh City.

Nguyen Hue flower street celebrates the Year of the Pig (Photo: sggpnews.org.vn)

The 2019 Lunar New Year holiday will fall on February 4-8, meaning it will span nine days including the two weekends.

On February 1, leaders of the HCM City Party Committee, People’s Council, People’s Committee and Fatherland Front will lay wreaths and offer incense to pay respect to late Presidents Ho Chi Minh and Ton Duc Thang at the Ho Chi Minh Museum, Ton Duc Thang Museum and Ho Chi Minh monument park.

On February 5 (the first day of the year in the lunar calendar), the southern economic hub will treat locals and visitors to firework performances at five venues – the Dam Sen cultural park in District 11, the history-culture park in District 9, Can Gio district, Cu Chi tunnel in Cu Chi district and Hiep Phuoc industrial park in Nha Be district.

In District 1, a Tet exhibition will run on Dong Khoi street, while a flower festival is scheduled for Tao Dan park, both from January 30 to February 10. Nguyen Hue flower street and Mac Thi Buoi – Nguyen Hue – Ngo Duc Ke book street will open between February 2 and 8, featuring new activities and nearly 100,000 books.

The history-culture park and 24 local districts will hold a Banh Tet (round glutinous rice cake) festival on January 30 and 31. Banh Tet is a traditional cake enjoyed by southern Vietnamese people on the occasion of the lunar New Year, a variant of the north’s Banh Chung (square glutinous rice cake).-VNA