SeeCalifornia.com

The Tet Festival held in conjunction with Lunar New Year takes place Feb. 7-9, 2014 in Costa Mesa, Calif.  The event has grown each year and now attracts more than 80,000 people, making the move to Orange County Fairgrounds a wise and strategic transition from neighborhood parks in Garden Grove and Westminster. Admission is $5. See tetfestival.org

Filled with pageantry, costumes, beauty contests, music, games, foods and fireworks, people from all ethnic backgrounds are attracted to spectacular displays at the unique cultural event with its own special customs. Produced by the Union of the Vietnamese Student Associations of Southern California as a fundraiser, the non-profit organization has raised and distributed over $1 million since its founding in 1982. For the Vietnamese community the festival is a source of pride and an opportunity to share customs so many hold dear.  Like a combination of Christmas, New Year’s Day and Memorial Day, kids receive little red envelopes filled with money, families buy and give flowering plants to friends, incense is lit at specially created altars, loved ones who have passed are remembered and honored, and the dragon dance is performed. During the dance efforts to feed the dragon to keep him appeased include food offerings of oranges and money. The dance culminates in a massive round of fireworks set off to launch the festivities. It’s fascinating, entertaining and well worth seeing. It’s a festival like none you have ever attended.