THE TET is a fun time for kids and adults, too (File photo).

The Tet Lunar New Year is right around the corner. It’s a cause for celebration for the many Vietnamese and Vietnamese-Americans that reside in Orange County, and especially for those in our West Orange County area.

About 1.3 million live in the U.S. today, most of them in California. San Jose has the largest number of Vietnamese residents with 106,992, according to a national survey, about 10.6 percent of that city’s population.

Garden Grove’s Viet community of 52,894 is 30.3 percent of the population, and Westminster has 36,789, which is 40 percent of the people residing in that city, the highest concentration in the U.S.
(These numbers are subject to change; the survey was completed in 2018.)

The town with the highest percentage of Vietnamese is unincorporated community is Midway City, with 41.4.

This is the Year of the Dragon. The Vietnamese New Year falls on Saturday and the holiday lasts for days. Celebration of the lunar new year – the arrival of spring – is a tradition of many Asian cultures, including China, Japan, Korea, Mongolia and Tibet.

The holiday is a time for visiting and family reunions, setting aside past struggles and expressing optimism for the coming year.