The Story of Tet: The Legend of Kitchen Gods (Tao Quan)

If you are Vietnamese or Asian people, you'll know that Lunar New Year is coming. Everyone must be every exciting including me. Lunar New Year is the time that every Asian family gets together and celebrate the new year. On the first day of moon calendar, they will go to each other house to wish each other the best wishes like prosperity, happiness, healthy, or luck. Then, the adult will give the children red envelopes that have lucky money inside. Besides that, with people who are Buddhist will go to temples to pray.

2023 is the year of Cat (or in China, they consider Rabbit) according to 12 Chinese Zodiac. The first day of Lunar New Year will be on January 22nd. By this time, everyone is preparing for "the most wonderful time of the year" with Asian people.

There are many traditions that we do in Lunar New Year. So that I will make a series of post telling and explain to you what we do in Lunar New Year. I will select the best, most meaningful, and funniest activities that we participate.

I am Vietnamese and in Vietnam, Lunar New Year is called Tet. We will celebrate Tet from the first day to fifth day of January in moon calendar. But a week before the first day of Tet, we will do an important tradition that is sending the Kitchen Gods to the sky so they can report what happened in my family last year to the Jade Emperor.

In this first post of this series, I will tell you more about the legend of the Kitchen Gods, also known as Tao Quan in Vietnamese, and why they are important to every Vietnamese family.

Source: Internet

The Tale

According to the story, there was a couple named Thi Nhi (the wife) and Trong Cao (the husband). But despite living in a passionate relationship with each other, Thi Nhi has never had children with Trong Cao. Therefore, he always wanted to cause trouble and tormented his wife.

Until one day, because of a small matter, Trong Cao turned into a big deal. He beat Thi Nhi and kicked her out of the house. Thi Nhi, therefore, left home to wander to another place. Then, she met and fell in love with Pham Lang, another man. Later, these two got married. Meanwhile, Trong Cao had calmed down and regretted sending his wife away, but at that time Thi Nhi had already left. Because he was so tormented and missed his wife, Trong Cao set out to find his wife.

Day after day, Trong Cao searched forever but couldn't find her, there was nothing left in his hand, the food and the money ran out, so he had to be a beggar along the way. As the fate had settled, Trong Cao then begged at Thi Nhi's house. When Pham Lang was not at home and Thi Nhi recognized her ex-husband, she invited Trong Cao to come in, and cooked for him. At that time, Pham Lang returned. Thi Nhi was afraid of her husband's suspicions, so she hid Trong Cao under the haystack in the back garden. Because Trong Cao was too tired, he fell asleep and did not know anything.

Unfortunately, that night, Pham Lang made fire and burned the haystack to collect ashes to fertilize the fields. Seeing the fire burning, Thi Nhi threw herself into the fire to save Trong Cao. Pham Lang loved his wife too much, so he jumped in to save them and all three died in the fire.

Jade Emperor felt sorry for them. He saw that all three people were alive when they were in love, so they were crowned the Kitchen Gods (also known as Dinh Phuc Tao Quan). The Kitchen Gods consisted of one woman and two men. Pham Lang was given the title of Tho Cong to take care of the kitchen, Trong Cao was Tho Dia to take care of the housework and Thi Nhi was Tho Ky to take care of the market. In addition to deciding the luck, bad luck, happiness and misfortune of the owner, these Gods also prevent the invasion of the devil into the residence, keeping everyone in the house peaceful.

Every year, on December 23 of the moon calendar (the day Tao Quan ascended to the heavens), they will ride a carp to transform into a dragon to the sky to report to the Jade Emperor all the good and bad deeds of people in the year so that he can determine the merits, rewards and punishments for all mankind.

The Legend of the Carp Transforming into Dragon.

As I mentioned above, there was a legend around this fish, which is so powerful and meaningful in the life of everyone. The story of the carp transforming into a dragon is an ancient myth of the Asians. Legend has it that, at the time when the sky and earth were newly formed, it was God who made rain, wind, and lightning. Water from rain forms rivers and seas, and creatures living in water are naturally created by God and from there form everything on Earth.

Later, because God was busy with creating humans and stopped making rain and wind, he sent dragons, which are animals in heaven, hovering in the air and spraying water on earth to make rain. But because the number of dragons in the sky is small, it is not enough to make rain everywhere, so God has set up a selective exam for animals to become dragons, called "dragon contest".

The order was sent down under the sea, King Thuy Te is the king who oversees the work in the water, announcing to all the creatures living in the water that they compete for the contest. It consists of three periods, each period must pass a wave, any sea creature that is strong enough, talented enough, and passes all three waves to pass to become a dragon.

Over the course of a month, many sea creatures came to compete but were eliminated. There is a perch that can jump over one wave, and then fall down the next time. There was a shrimp that jumped over two waves, thinking that it was about to become a dragon, but in the third wave, it was exhausted, so it fell down, from which the back of the shrimp was bent. As time went on, one species after another failed, until a special carp appeared.

This carp is special because it has a precious gem in its mouth. The God of the wind, seeing that it was strange, flew to see it, causing the wind and clouds to rush in, thunder and lightning, and high waves arose. Carp, thanks to the high wave, can pass through three waves once, release pearls, overcome the Ring of Power (Vu Long Mon) and turn into a Dragon.

The image of a carp transforming into a dragon crossing Vu Long Mon carries a lot of feng shui meanings as well as a profound human meaning. The meanings of the image of the carp turning into a dragon are:

• Valuable qualities (with jade in the body) make a difference to all species, have abundant health.

• Sacrifice, perseverance, perseverance, willingness to face challenges and pain to achieve the dream of becoming a dragon. Courage to overcome difficulties and obstacles, courage to overcome difficulties.

• The image of a carp transforming into a dragon is also the crystallization of luck, success, victory, and is also a symbol of aspiration for success.

• The carp turned into a dragon sprayed water, making the land fertile, the trees green, bringing life to all species, a symbol of affluence, warmth and happiness.

The Ceremony to Send the Kitchen Gods to the Heaven Court.

Vietnamese people believe that the three Kitchen Gods determine the blessings and virtues for the family because of the right conduct of the owner and the people in the house. On December 23 every year, people and families often hold a ceremony to send Tao Quan to heaven solemnly with the hope that the Kitchen Gods will bless their family with much luck. Families will prepare a decent ceremony with offerings to the Tao and various offerings.

When preparing the ceremony to Tao Quan, the owner of the house has to place a tray full of various things in two places. Specifically, people need to place the worshiping tray at the altar for worshiping ancestors, and the tray for worshiping Tao Quan in the kitchen because they are the Kitchen Gods.

In the North Vietnam, people often worship Tao Quan from around December 20 and at the latest before twelve at noon on December 23. Northerners believe that after twelve at noon on December 23, Tao Quan has returned to report to Jade Emperor.

On the tray offering to Mr. Tao in the North usually include: votive paper, carp, hats, clothes of the Kitchen Gods, sticky rice, tea, boiled chicken, bamboo shoot soup, fried beef with green broccolis,....

The difference in offerings of the North compared to the other two regions is that the Northern people often offer live carp or paper carp in different quantities. If it is a live carp, after offering it, people will bring it to rivers and streams to release the animal, and if it is a paper carp, after offering it, it will be burned.

Southerners often sends Tao Quan at night from 8pm to 11pm on December 23. The tray of worshiping Tao Quan of the South includes the main dishes such as spring rolls, banh chung, salted onions, boiled chicken, a plate of peanuts, black sesame candy and a set of "flying storks, running horses" made of paper. In the South, people do not worship carp or worship votive papers.

People in the Central region worship Tao Quan on December 23 very solemnly. The tray of worshiping Mr. Tao of the Central people does not have votive papers. However, people in the Central region often offer a paper horse with a full saddle and many other offerings.

Traditionally, many families in Hue also erected the tree in front of their yard on the morning of December 23. On the afternoon of the 30th of Tet people carry out a ceremony to bring Tao Quan home and on the morning of the 1st day of the New Year, the new Tao Quan will be placed.

Conclusion.

This is the first tradition before celebrating Tet. Of course, not many people don't believe in the Kitchen Gods. But to me, it is meaningful because there are Gods inside my house and bless my family in a year. They see everything inside my family and report to Jade Emperor. I believe in them. I am grateful. So what do we do after this first tradition? I will reveal to you in the upcoming post.