Vietnamese Fairy Tales: These are the stories passed down orally from generation to generation. All Vietnamese children know that stories and they are learned them carefully at school.
Once upon the time, after diving An enemy out of the country, at the 6 th Hung King, Hung King intended to throne to his sons. On Spring (Lunar New Year) Holiday, he said: “I would throne to son who could find the delicious and meaningful dishes to worship the ancestors”. All princes spent a lot of money to find delicious dishes everywhere.
Lang Lieu, whose mother passed away when he was a child, was one of princes. He’s worry all day because he didn’t know what dishes he would offer Hung King. One night, He saw a genie in his dream; the genie said: “ Sky and land were the biggest and rice was the most precious thing in the world. You didn’t need to make many dishes, two meaningful cakes were enough. Bring me some rice and find some green peas” Lang Lieu saw the genie to take large green leaves. The genie was packing cakes and explaining: “This cake symbolized the land. The land had trees, field, forest so its colour was green and its shape was square. Putting meat, green peas into cake that symbolized the land protected animals, trees, etc… After that, pounding rice to make the second cake. That cake symbolized the sky so its colour was white and its shape was round”
Lang Lieu started to made two cake after waking up. Everyone looked down on those cake when Lang Lien offered Hung King. They thought those cake couldn’t become precious dishes because they were made from normal ingredient and we could find them out everywhere. “ These were the most delicious dishes which were made from normal ingredient” examiners said when they tasted them.
Finally, Hung King chose Lieu’s dishes and said: “ Nothing is more precious than rice, these dishes showed filial piety to ancestors and love of country. The square cake was called Chung cake and the round cake was called Giay cake. Then Lang Lieu became the next King (the 7 th Hung King). Since then, Vietnamese people had a custom that those made Chung cake & Giay cake to offer ancestors on Lunar New Year (TET).
The square cake is called Chung Cake

The round cake is called Giay Cake

The long cake is called Tet Cake. It’s popular in Central & South Vietnam

Vietnamese family is packing Cake on Lunar New Year

Nowadays, many Vietnamese families especially families in city don’t pack Cakes at home on Lunar New Year, they usually choose to buy them at Cake shops or supermarket. There are many reasons for this choice: they are so busy with work, they want have more free time on holidays and it’s easy to buy that Cakes at Shop. However, there are many families want to pack Cake and teach their children how to cook them. Everyone knows it always the happiest day of them.
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