Culture

SEOUL, South Korea – On a quiet Friday night, several North Korean defectors gathered at the camping site near Seoul World Cup Stadium. Defectors are North Koreans who have fled their country for ideological, political, or economic reasons. Risking punishment and even death in case of capture, they cross the country’s armed borders and come to South Korea.

HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam – This past summer, teenagers in Ho Chi Minh City, the largest city in Vietnam, flocked to join the Red Flamboyant Campaign (RFC), a volunteer organization of high schoolers whose goal is to work for the good of the community.

“I think all students in Ho Chi Minh City have heard of it,” said Kim Anh, an 18-year-old graduate of Tran Phu High School. The RFC is directed by the Youth Union Central, a popular Vietnamese youth organization, and was named after a kind of flower representative of education in Vietnam. With 12,000 teachers and students joining in one month, the RFC is indeed expanding rapidly, as Anh suggests.

HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam – “Be good, or you won't receive any presents,” Christian parents warn their excited children as Christmas nears. But before stepping into a new year in Vietnam, this advice is given to everyone, kids and adults.

According to legend, a woman and two men who were in a painful threesome affair leaped into a flaming cooking fire. They became the genies known in Vietnamese as Táo; their statues, displayed prominently in every household’s kitchen, are believed to guard the kitchen and the happiness of every family.

HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam – The Vietnamese New Year, known as Tet, is an occasion when family members working or studying all over the country come back together to their homes. It is celebrated over three days between January 21 and February 19 every year.

Children wear new clothes and are given "lucky money" to wish them on their birthday. (Vietnamese people celebrate their birthdays to coincide with the beginning of each New Year.) There is a lot of food and jams made of ginger, peach and coconut.

Some decades ago, many activities were organized for people to participate in the New Year celebrations. With urbanization, some of these traditions have disappeared from big cities.