The event was held at Hilton Hotel and joined by about 130 people. Andy Nguyen, one of the organizers and performers of the event admitted he was surprised to see that many people coming for the gathering. 

“We expected about 100 honestly… We didn’t think we would see a whole community in this room”, he said. 

The event also turned out to be more meaningful than expected since it was filled with Vietnamese people whose hearts were leaning towards their home countries and the national annual celebration. 

The staff members of TRU Vietnamese Club definitely put a lot of thoughts into holding the event. According to Andy Nguyen and Jennie Bui, they had the idea for the event about six weeks ago. The Vietnamese Club has been around campus for so long, but that was the first time they ever targeted something that big in size and deep in meaning. 

Along with the normal luxurious design of the room, they added new elements to make sure the room looked cozy and familiar for Vietnamese people, and at the same time, interesting and appealing for people who wanted to learn more about this 5000-year culture. 

TRU World member with her lucky money envelop 

The event started at 3 PM and ran all the way to 8:30 PM. Along the way was the combination of performances and games, each was designed to make sure everyone can participate and learn something from the experience. Hailey Tran and Andy Nguyen, two hosts of the night, kicked off the event by introducing Vietnamese’s traditional Lunar New Year, which in Vietnamese we call “Tet”. 

It is the biggest ceremony of Vietnamese people, usually takes place in February. This is the time and opportunity for families to gather together after one year of hard work and study; for everyone to look back at the past year and let go of mistakes and regrets and get ready to welcome a better year to come. It is easy for people in Vietnam to visit their loved ones and spend couple of happy and hopeful days with their families. With TRU Vietnamese international students and immigrants in Kamloops which is half the globe away from Vietnam, not so much. 

Therefore, with the spirit of going back home and celebrating the most meaningful and participated event of Vietnamese people, the club members and staffs decided to give each other a taste of home. So it began.

The hosts’ speech was followed by a dance performance. The performers wore “aodai”, Vietnamese women’s traditional dress along with unique Vietnamese coned hat. They danced on the background of a famous song which compliments Vietnamese women’s elegant beauty. Their smiles and energy quickly filled the room with joy and appreciation.

After the first performance, the organizers put together some games. They put a lot of thoughts and efforts in making these games to make sure everybody could participate and have a good time. The first game was something familiar. Each team consisted of 5 people, and they all will have headphones with extremely loud music on. Their job was to try to guess the phrase that the host gave them without being able to hear anything. The only clues were the hints the previous player gave them. This game really hyped up the crowd and gave everyone a good laugh.

The next game was called “Balloons smashing”. Each team had to try to smash other teams’ balloons. The last one standing was the winning team.

The event continued with some more mesmerizing performances. Alex Bui, TRU’s International Student Advisor, expressed how impressed she was with TRU Vietnamese students’ talents. “They are really good, talented, everything was put together well.”

Members and staffs of TRU Vietnamese Club

One of the most exciting part was when they handed out the lucky money. The money was put inside envelops, and each attendees received one. In Vietnamese culture, when people give each other lucky money, they are wishing the others a good and fortunate year. Therefore, rather than just being merely the money or the amount given, it is more of a gesture of sincerity and heart-warming wishes.

As good and appealing the singing and dancing were, everyone in the room was looking forward to one thing: the food. Vietnam has a wild and diverse culinary culture which was already complimented by hundreds of chefs and reviewers in the world. Therefore, the attendees couldn’t wait until dinner when they could have a better look and taste of Vietnamese cuisine. When Hailey Tran announced “It’s dinner time!”, the mood was lifted up more than ever. 

The staffs of the club made sure to include various options. The food was very much enjoyed by everyone. Leslie Matthews, TRU’s worker at the International Admission Office gave her praise to the food as well. 

Usually, after dinner is the time when everything started to come to a close. Therefore, the organizers of the event put together one last dance performance, followed by a fun game which was cheered for by everyone. Surprisingly, the people who attended the event didn’t seem to get tired or bored at any point. They were very energetic, and clearly having fun.

YuryKozlov, a TRU student from Russia, considered the gathering an opportunity to “learn about Vietnamese culture.” He answered, while waiting for his friend’s performance, “I came here with my friend, I didn’t expect to see much or enjoy much of the event. But I did. It’s fun, the food is delicious, and I learned a lot today. You guys have such amazing culture.” While being asked if there were an event like that happening in the future, would he still attend, Kozlov said yes without thinking twice. 

One interesting thing about the gathering was that you can clearly see how close the Vietnamese students are with each other. Vietnamese have a strong sense of community and unity, but seeing those students having a good time, laughing, singing and basically letting everything go together, it was a strange yet familiar scene. The smiles on their faces really brightened up the whole room and atmosphere, more than any lights can ever do. 

“We have been through difficulties together, you know, putting together this event wasn’t easy”, Andy Nguyen said. Jennie Bui said their main sponsor for the event was TRUSU, however, before actually getting sponsored, they had to go through length to seek for any sponsors possible, convince them that this gathering was worth the money and expectation. They said, even though they came up with the idea six months for the gathering, they still had a lot of struggles. There were not enough time for them to always meet up and plan because there were too many conflicts with their school schedules. And when they had the plan figured out, they had to handle the stress and anxiety of perfectly executing everything without letting anybody down. 

Talking about their initiatives, Jennie Bui said, “We just want to present our distinctive way to celebrate Lunar New Year, and bring awareness to people about our signature holiday, gather people around with really good food, and a great laugh, I guess.” It was a difficult task, to bring a foreign culture into a different country, without a lot of help and resources, but they were proud that the event turned out to be good enough. They also want to help the Vietnamese students at TRU be more social, and shine bright in the new established community. The Tet Gathering was a great bonding experience for TRU students from Vietnam. Jennie said she is grateful that she has this community to celebrate the culture with. They hope to bring the Vietnamese culture to not only Canadian but international students in Canada. 

Hai Nguyen, the current president of TRU Vietnamese club agreed that the Vietnamese community in Kamloops is expanding. There used to be very few Vietnamese people in town, but with over a hundred Vietnamese people coming to the event, we can expect a more diverse Kamloops with different cultures living together. 

As the president of the club, Hai Nguyen guaranteed they are working hard to bring more meaningful events with Vietnamese culture to TRU, expecting they would be the opportunity for international Vietnamese students at TRU to explore themselves, learn new things and teach new things about the culture they are dearly proud of. 

Huyen Nguyen