Optimism abounds for Tet festival.
Optimism abounds for Tet festival.
It's also the driving force behind this year's predicted festival turnout of 50,000, said Hung Lai, general secretary of the festival's sponsor, the Coalition of the Nationalist Vietnamese Organization of Northern California. The Year of the Dragon, a venerated symbol of power, wealth and luck, comes only once every 12 years in the lunar calendar. For this reason, a Tet festival that falls on the millennium is celebrated with more color, more passion. It signifies the beginning of the exodus of Vietnamese to the United States and the national emergence of a Vietnamese community. And it has inspired a pilgrimage back to Vietnam among those who want to mark this special Lunar New Year in their homeland.