Spring Into Action - Xuân Lên Ðường

Tet, the Lunar New Year, marks the beginning of spring and is the most popular and single-most celebrated holiday in many Asian cultures, particularly within the Vietnamese and Chinese communities. It encompasses the spirit and excitement of all holidays into one single celebration. As a means to preserve tradition, the Vietnamese American community of Southern California celebrates the annual Lunar New Year Festival, known as the Tết Festival.

The Tết Festival is a long standing tradition for asian communities worldwide, and the year 2004 marks the 22nd Lunar Near Year celebration for the Union of Vietnamese Student Associations of Southern California. Beginning in 1982, in recognizing the cultural significance of Tet, UVSA organizes an annual celebration of Tet for Southern California in order to maintain a core tradition of the Vietnamese community. The Tet Festival serves as a means to fund community programs and projects. Because this event attracts more than 150,000 patrons yearly, it serves as the largest cultural event in the Little Saigon community.

This year, as we celebrate the Year of the Monkey in the City of Garden Grove, thousands of people, young and old, are expected to attend the festival. We invite you to support this cultural tradition and attend this event. For more information on last year's Tet Festival, please visit the photos or videos pages.

Dates: Friday, January 23rd, 2004 - Sunday, January 25th, 2004
Location: Garden Grove Park, 9301 Westminster Blvd, Garden Grove, CA, 92844-2752
Theme: Spring In Action / Xuân Lên Ðường

• 322 Pictures / 66 Videos of Tet Festival Online
  The UVSA IT Team is still currently working hard to edit videos and get all pictures of all three days of this past weekend's Tet Festival 2004 online on our website. Please be patient and come back and visit the Multimedia section on http://www.thsv.org. A whole new bunch of videos are expected to be posted late tonight/early Thursday, and our Tet 2004 issue of our Non Song magazine is slated to be online by this weekend.



• Free Parking At Bolsa Grande High School and Westminster Civic Center With Free Shuttle
  Free all-day parking will be available at Bolsa Grande High School, which is located just east of Garden Grove Park, right next to the festival grounds. On Saturday and Sunday, the nearby Westminster Civic Center and Freedom Park (8200 Westminster Blvd., Westminster CA 92683-3366) will also be available for free parking including a free shuttle to and from the Tet Festival. The shuttle operates on Saturday from 12pm to 11pm and on Sunday from 12pm to 10pm only.



• California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley To Attend Festival
  Rumors are true: California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley will attend the opening ceremony of the upcoming Tet Festival 2004 in Little Saigon this Saturday, January 24th, 2004. He will be the highest-ranking government official to address the festival crowd this year.



• Free Admission with Áo Dài on Saturday
  To promote our Vietnamese culture, there will be "happy hours" for our female attendees on Saturday: female attendees wearing a Vietnamese traditional dress (áo dài) will be able to enter the festival grounds on Saturday, January 24th, for free between the hours of 10am to 2pm only.



• Projected Schedule of Events Posted
  We just posted the projected schedule of events for the tet festival. Soon, we will also post the confirmed list of Vietnamese celebrities that will be present.



• Tet Pageant Deadline Extended
  Due to finals and the holidays, the UVSA hosted Tet Pageant 2004 deadline has been extended. Please invite all your friends and those who are good potential or might be interested to visit the website and sign up online: http://www.tetpageant.com



• Vendor Booths Available!
  In case you haven't noticed yet, but we are already selling booths for the festival. Download the required documents, fill them out and bring it into our office. The sooner you do this the better, as booths are given out on a first come, first serve basis!



• Sponsorship proposal ready
  The sponsorship applications are now available. Please download and view the proposal on our Sponsor page.



• We are expanding!
  Rumors are true---we are doubling our festival ground site! Although the Tet Festival will still take place at Garden Grove Park, the festival area now stretches from its current location all the way to the 22 freeway. This means that the stage, the booths, the games and rides are all at different locations.