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At 6 a.m. Friday, the 15th day of the first lunar month, Ly A Ton, 62, woke early to prepare offerings, including fresh flowers, fruit, incense, boiled chicken and fried cakes ( jian dui ) in front of his house on Tran Hung Dao Street in District 5.

Instead of flocking to a Chinese-built pagoda with his offerings and burning incense to the gods as in previous years, Ton stayed home and set up a table to worship the deities for fear of gathering in crowds amid the new Covid-19 outbreak that began in the country in late January.

He then hung red pieces of paper bearing Chinese characters on his walls to pray for peace and good fortune.

“This is the most important ritual during Tet Nguyen Tieu ,” he said, referring to the Lantern Festival, known as the biggest and most important festival of the year for ethnic Chinese, marking the final day of the traditional Lunar New Year ( Tet ) celebration.

It is observed on the 15th day of the first lunar month, the first Full Moon day of the Lunar New Year.

” Tet Nguyen Tieu to us is even more important than Lunar New Year’s Eve and Chinese like us always light incense to deities at pagodas and temples to pray for the removal of bad luck and a year of peace and happiness,” Ton noted.

“But the Covid-19 outbreak forced us to celebrate on a smaller scale this year. I am old and scared of contracting the virus or spreading it to my family members. Therefore, I limit going out and gathering in crowds.”

He also had to cancel a reunion party with his relatives and could not visit his friends during the festival, which is an occasion for reunited families to eat dumplings and floating rice cakes made of glutinous rice flour wrapped around a sweet filling.

Inside the 250-year-old Lady Thien Hau Temple, which is dedicated to worship the Goddess of the Sea, the devout convey their prayers by lighting spiral incense sticks that can burn for weeks. Photo by VnExpress/Phong Vinh.

Ton is one of thousands of ethnic Chinese in Saigon who have been forced to scrap their plans during their biggest traditional spring festival, normally accompanied with dragon dances, street parades, music performances and large crowds.

The city suspended all non-essential services, shutting down bars, karaoke parlors, cinemas and discotheques, and banned religious events since Feb. 9 after recording a series of community transmissions linked to a cluster at the Tan Son Nhat International Airport.

Though city authorities allowed the organization of religious events from March 1, gatherings of more than 50 people at a time remain prohibited.

This was the second consecutive year the festival has been suspended due to the pandemic. The Chinatown area on Friday saw no dragon dances and street parades to avoid large crowds.

Without dragon dances, the festival was no longer as busy nor as meaningful as before, A Tieu, a 55-year-old merchant at Soai Kinh Lam Market, said while preparing to up his shutters for a new business day.

Dragon dance is performed by famous troupes in the Chinatown during Tet Nguyen Tieu , 2018. Photo by VnExpress/Thanh Nguyen.

The Chinese community strongly believes these dances would dispel evil and bring luck and success. For this, every family invites a lion dance troupe to visit their homes and business establishments on the first days of the New Year, giving them an envelope of lucky money.

Ly Sy Cuong, a caretaker at Nghia An Assembly Hall where Quan Cong (Guan Yu), an ancient Chinese general, is worshiped for his loyalty, sincerity and integrity, said the number of pilgrims on Friday fell sharply as dragon dances and hat tuong , Vietnamese-Chinese opera, were canceled.

Ethnic Chinese have a long tradition to queue up and crawl under the Chinese general horse called Red Hare once or thrice hoping for a smooth start to the new year.

Vietnam has recorded 837 Covid-19 community transmissions in 13 localities, including Hanoi and HCMC, since Jan. 28 after a 55-day clean streak. Many major spring festivals have been suspended due to travel restrictions, lockdowns and quarantine requirements.

Ethnic Chinese, locally referred to as Hoa people, arrived in the south of Vietnam over 300 years ago, with many cultural traditions and long-standing customs kept alive until now.

For Ton, his best wish during Tet Nguyen Tieu is that all people would be safe amid the pandemic and Chinese Vietnamese businesses would fare better this year.

But every day, even in the cold of the northern winter, he stands by the front door of his house to gaze at the forest with pride and happiness.

The trees were all planted by him and his family over 50 years, and his life has been dedicated to growing and protecting them.

Cao belongs to the Dao ethnic group, and lives in Tan Dan Commune in Ha Long Town of Quang Ninh Province, home to the world-famous bay.

Trieu Tai Cao at his home in Ha Long in Quang Ninh Province. Photo by VnExpress/Minh Cuong.

The Dao used to be nomadic, felling forests to meet their temporary land needs for cattle and crops before moving on.

It was not until 1968 that they started to settle. By then Cao had started thinking about growing trees. He began to look around for seedlings of valuable timber trees such as ironwood, shorea and apitong.

Between 1970 and 1980 he and his family planted those and other trees on 32 hectares (80 acres).

They faced a lot of challenges in protecting the forest initially because there were no regulations for transferring forest lands to local residents, meaning his family had no authority to manage the forest.

In 1992 the government announced a policy of handing over forests for people to maintain and exploit sustainably.

“I love our family’s forest,” Cao says.

“Thanks to that policy, I could continue growing timber while many people around us opted for growing wattle, also known as acacia.”

Growing acacia takes less time and effort and starts providing an income sooner than timber.

Now the forest has around 600 ironwood trees aged 40-70 years besides hundreds of other timber trees.

Trieu Tien Loc in his family’s forest in Ha Long in Quang Ninh Province. Photo by VnExpress/Minh Cuong.

“I am close to death now and have fulfilled my wish to leave the future generations a forest with such valuable trees.

“Forests are humans’ lungs and should not be treated as public property. So I also wish my children and grandchildren will continue to grow trees and protect this forest.”

Trieu Tien Loc, 35, the youngest of his five sons, says: “Many traders have come to us and asked to buy the ironwood, but my family has been insistently saying no. My father has spent his entire life growing and protecting the forest, and we will continue that.”

“My family’s forest is a watershed forest, and there are large trees that can hold the soil and water, which protects us from landslides.”

Even without chopping down or selling any of the large trees, Cao’s family enjoys an income from the forest by growing other types of plants in it such as bamboo, herbs and medicinal plants.

Pham Van Sau, Party chief of Tan Dan, says Cao’s family is the only one in the commune to successfully grow timber and protect the trees for long.

“Many provincial officials have visited Cao’s forest. Two years ago we sought permission to turn the forest into an eco-tourism area, but have yet to get it.”

Quang Ninh has more than 337,000 hectares of forests, including 122,700 ha of natural forests. Its forest cover of 54.7 percent is among the highest of any province in the country.

Around 700,000 ha of land are still available in the country for growing forests, Vuong Van Quynh, former head of the Institute for Forest Ecology and Environment at the Vietnam National University of Forestry, had told VnExpress last year.

Vietnam has a target of growing around 200,000 ha of forests each year.

By Van Khuong – Translated by Anh Quan