The event was organised by the Department of Information and Communications of Ho Chi Minh City with the aim to convey knowledge, joy, and expectations for an exciting new year, with the city’s publishing industry and the whole country entering a new era towards the future technology economy.
The book giving event started from the first day of Tet. This year, the organising committee has prepared about 20,000 "lucky books" to give to visitors on the first day of the new year, as a thank you and a wish of good luck and prosperity from the organising committee and publishing and distribution units to readers.
Compared to the first time the event was held for the Year of the Dragon 2024, the 2025 Tet Book Giving activity features many more attractive performances, especially the organising committee’s inclusion of a calligraphy performance in the programme.
For Vietnamese people, spring is the beginning of the new year, and also the beginning of everything new. In these days, everyone wishes for their family and themselves to have better and more prosperous things.
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Lam Dinh Thang, Director of the Department of Information and Communications of Ho Chi Minh City, gives lucky books to guests attending the programme. |
Phan Quoc Bao, 8 years old, from Binh Chanh District, was extremely excited to receive a lucky book entitled “Unknown things about octopus”. Quoc Bao said that although he had read this book before, he will still keep it for himself because it was his lucky gift for the New Year. “Every year I will go to the Book Street Festival to receive more new books as lucky gifts,” Bao said.
As the city’s reading culture ambassador, Dr Quach Thu Nguyet, Vice President of the Ho Chi Minh City Reading Culture Ambassador Club, said that the development of reading in the community, especially among young people in the city, is increasingly receiving attention. Every year, the city has more book streets, expanded reading spaces, book events, book festivals, and especially the Tet book lucky money activity, which is increasingly attracting young people.
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Staff instruct visitors on how to use the audiobook account when receiving it. |
According to Lam Dinh Thang, Director of the Department of Information and Communications of Ho Chi Minh City, although it has only been organised for 2 years, the Tet book lucky money programme has received enthusiastic response and support from publishing and distribution units as well as a large number of people in the city. Giving lucky money with Tet books has become a cultural feature of the city named after Uncle Ho in the first days of the new year.
Giving lucky money with Tet books is not just giving a book, but through that book, the organising committee wants to convey love, sharing knowledge, and passion for reading of book lovers to each other, book makers to each other.
Each book is a spiritual gift that nourishes the soul, inspires knowledge, contains many humanistic values, and unique cultural features of the city’s people. “We hope that the gifting of Tet books will continue to be maintained, becoming a unique traditional cultural feature of the city every time Tet comes and spring comes. We also hope that more and more book publishers, relevant departments, and people will continue to join hands to develop the city’s reading movement, especially among young people,” Thang added.
