Hanoi (VNA) - Like most other nations inAsia, Vietnamese people welcome the New Year according to the lunar calendar,and Tet Nguyen Dan (the lunar New Year Day) has long become the biggestfestival of the nation.

Among the numerous offerings that are required todecorate ancestral altars during the traditional New Year, a five-fruit tray isindispensable for each Vietnamese family, which is a symbol of thewholeheartedness and filial piety of the present generation towards theirancestors and the Genie of the Land.

Like other popular rituals, the preparation of a five‑fruittray for Tet has become an established convention. During the few days justbefore Tet, the Vietnamese begin to buy the necessary fruits for this purpose.A five‑fruit tray is usually composed of a hand of green bananas, a ripe pomelo(or a Buddha's hand, a shaddock), oranges, persimmons, sapodilla plums, a bunchof kumquat, and in recent years, one can add mangoes and grapes from southernVietnam, or apples and pears from China. Although it is called a five‑fruittray, it does not necessarily contain exactly five kinds of fruit.

Arranging fruits on the crimson, hourglass‑shaped woodentray is really an art. One has to combine the colours and shapes of thedifferent fruits in arranging them on the tray to make it look like a stilllife picture.

To ensure balance on the tray, the hand of bananas isusually put in the middle with the bananas pointing upright and the pomelo onthe concave surface of the hand of bananas. Then the oranges, sapodilla plums,apples are added in the gaps between the bananas and the pomelo.

The last little gaps are filled in with little kumquatsto create a full, compact tray of fruits. In colours, the fruit‑tray presents aharmonious combination of the different colours of fruits: dark green ofbanana, light yellow of pomelo, deep red of persimmon, reddish yellow of orangeand kumquat, light green of apple, and dark brown of sapodilla plum. Tocomplete the picture, the fruit tray will be covered here and there with somesmall, fresh leaves of kumquat.

The five-fruittray, together with horizontal lacquered boards engraved with Chinesecharacters, parallel sentences written on red paper, ornamental kumquat andpeach trees, and popular Hang Trong and Dong Ho pictures, has transcended itsmaterial value to become a spiritual symbol, an original national product inthe spiritual life of the Vietnamese.

At present,while many of the ancient spiritual values have sunk into oblivion, the customof arranging the five‑fruit tray on the altar during the lunar New Year days isbeing jealously preserved as a fine legacy of Vietnam's traditionalculture.-VNA