The Tamesis
If you listen carefully, you’ll notice that New York City starts to take on a different buzz in the weeks leading up to Lunar New Year. Storefronts were plastered with red envelopes, subway riders carried bags filled with fruit, and multiple Chinatowns across the city’s boroughs took on a new, bustling energy.
Photographer Anh Nguyen recently tracked six Vietnamese-American creatives as they prepared for the Vietnamese Lunar New Year, Vietnam’s most important holiday. In between busy days, deadlines, shoots and sets — not to mention this year’s fashion week — they build altars, steam sticky rice, call family across time zones, and rehearse traditions learned around their parents. About 23,000 New Yorkers are of Vietnamese descent, a relatively small community compared with places like San Jose and Orange counties in California or Houston. Additionally, as artist and actor Lynn Kim Đỗ puts it, “New York’s head-to-head mentality can be isolating.” “We miss the community here, so we have to make it our own.”
For these stylists, chefs, DJs, actors and designers, Lunar New Year is not a pause but an extension of creative life: vibrant arrangements of yellow flowers in the comfort of your apartment; lovingly prepared food and even some records to celebrate with your ancestors; cherished memories of falling asleep in the kitchen next to your parents while they make Vietnamese sandwiches. Preparation is less about spectacle than intention: a recalibration of space, spirit, and self. With this comes a deep understanding that preparing for the new year means honoring the old and intentionally making space for what comes next.
