Message of the five-fruit tray on Tet holiday

In the spiritual culture of Vietnamese people, the five-fruit tray on Tet holiday holds an important position, showing respect to ancestors and the morality of "when drinking water, remember its source".

The five-fruit tray originated from Buddhism, mentioned in the Ullambana Sutra with the image of "five-colored fruits". The five colors symbolize the "five good roots" according to Buddhism, including: faith, perseverance, memory, concentration, and wisdom.

According to the concept of the Northern people, the five-fruit tray consists of five types of fruit with different colors, corresponding to the five colors of the elements Metal-Wood-Water-Fire-Earth, symbolizing the wish for five blessings: Wealth, luxury, longevity, health, peace. Therefore, those five fruits to our ancestors in the past were the five good things that everyone expected in the new year: Wealth-Nobility-Longevity-Health-Peace.

Northerners display the five-fruit tray according to the five-element theory in Eastern culture, which is that all things are in harmony with heaven and earth. Therefore, the five-fruit tray must also be coordinated with five colors: Metal is white, Wood is green, Water is black, Fire is red, Earth is yellow. The arrangement and color of each type of fruit is interspersed to be beautiful and in accordance with Tet feng shui.

The traditional way of presenting bananas is to place the banana bunch at the bottom to support all the other fruits. In the middle of the dark green banana bunch is a plump grapefruit or a beautiful yellow Buddha’s hand fruit. Smaller fruits such as oranges, kumquats, persimmons, etc. are arranged alternately around it.

DIEP NINH