Tet Festival Flashback

In honor of the approaching Lunar New Year, I am blogging about Tet. Back in 2018, I had the opportunity to attend Tet Festival, which was held in Costa Mesa. It’s an event that happens annually, however I wouldn’t be surprised if the event isn’t held this year per COVID. Since I never got the chance to share about my experience with the festival, I’m doing it today!

I believe this festival originally was held in a park in Garden Grove (or Westminster) and somehow, the festival grew to the point that it needed to be on the same grounds as the Orange County Fair. Impressive, right? The event is filled with a lot of people. But just because there’s a lot of attendees, it doesn’t mean that the festival is great. The festival is organized by students for the most part. While it’s impressive for students to organize such an event, this event has been in existence for a good amount of time already, leaving little excuse for how sloppy some things were.

For example, a lot of things just didn’t start on time. I’d be understanding if things were off by 10-15 minutes, but when it’s more than that, I kind of have an issue with it. And I know I wasn’t the only one bothered by it because people near me were saying things about it. Another issue with the event revolved around lack of clarity. There’s a pamphlet that tells you what’s going on that day but when things don’t happen where they state it’s going to happen or it’s open for interpretation, it gets confusing.

I recall there being a Vietnamese “wedding procession” and the people that wanted to see this had no idea where they had to go in order to see it. That is just mind boggling. As one of the people that wanted to see this, I am surprised that I even ran into the bride. It was almost as if I was on a treasure hunt and the treasure was the bride. (So bizarre.)

I had a hunch that this festival was going to be a bit of a hot mess from the get go when their welcome lion dance didn’t occur where the pamphlet said it would occur. It’s disappointing for people to purposely head to destination A only to learn that they should be at destination C instead. Like, what is the point of a pamphlet then? Since I’ve seen an adequate amount of lion dances, it’s not too much of a biggie but can you imagine how an attendee looking forward to seeing it would feel? They’d be so disappointed.

Performances aside, the festival had a variety of vendors: food trucks, organizations, retail stalls and more. While there was some fun in trying to get freebies from specific vendors, overall, it felt weird. Like, here I am at a Vietnamese Lunar New Year festival and some of these stalls have nothing to do with the Lunar New Year celebration. Can someone say awkward? Despite this, a lot of people were queing up at various stalls. Eventually, I kind of got annoyed at the nonsense especially since it was getting hot at some points in the day.

One particular vendor that rubbed me the wrong way was a retailer (Lokisa). Prior to attending the festival, I learned that they would be giving out a freebie to anyone that asks for it. They had posted this on their IG. So, me, wanting to get a freebie decides to do just that and the girl working the counter tells me no. It became this bait and switch type of thing where she said I would need to buy x and y in order to get a freebie. And I’m like wtf because there was no mention of that on their IG post.

To make matters worse, an attendee that I guess happens to know this girl drops by and I kid you not when I tell you that this employee gives some type of a freebie to that attendee and that attendee did not buy a thing. It was at that point that I was like I cannot support such a company. And it really bothered me because it’s not like I never bought something from them before. I actually had bought things from them at AX before.

As their items aren’t cheap, it’s a good thing they’ve lost me as a customer. And it was such a ridiculous way to lose a customer, too with their female employee being two faced only to be so nonchalant right after. I cannot stand such nonsense.

And if you thought the bait and switch thing ended there, it didn’t. I went to a K-Pop vendor simply because a good amount of people were there and they had signs mentioning of a bargain. Since I’m not exactly into K-Pop, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to just take a look at what they have because the likelihood of me buying something would be slim. But then I saw a poster that caught my eye.

I didn’t exactly know who these singers were but the poster was attractive and I figured it wouldn’t hurt to buy it for $5. So, I point to the poster to double check with the vendor that it is $5 and he tells me no. So, why do you have a sign that says your posters are $5? If this isn’t some type of bait and switch thing, then I don’t know what it is. I was really annoyed, yet at the same time, it wasn’t a big deal because I didn’t really need the poster. I just was disappointed that people were supporting a vendor that wasn’t being honest. Just imagine a K-Pop fangirl going in there to buy merchandise and paying for the merchandise without calculating the total before hand!

At this point in my blog, you’re probably wondering if I even had a tiny bit of fun here. I feel that these dishonest retailers are bad but they shouldn’t reflect on the Tet Festival itself since they’re most likely just vendors renting a space to sell their merchandise. There was one retailer that I recall that was actually very nice and honest, though. They even had a sales rack and despite me looking through the sales rack, the male employee took the time to talk to me about it. It was sweet and if only I could recall the name of their store, I would mention it here.

So, going back to whether I had fun here or not. It’s hard to say. I felt as though the event was just something for me to do. It wasn’t really a fulfilling experience yet I was doing something different for the day. They had an area filled with a lot of nice photo opportunities but it wasn’t exactly catered to solo attendees. So, I had to ask a volunteer/staff or worse, a stranger to take my photo for me.

While it’s not a big deal to ask someone to take a photo for me, it was weird especially in photo opp areas where they subtly yet not so subtly ask for donations. I get that the students need donations but at the same time, their donations’ cup really turned me off. (I think twice, I gave a donation but it was an awkward experience.) If I could go back in time, I would have just gotten all of the pictures taken first thing in the morning because it would have been easier to “pester” someone to take a photo for me and there would have been less attendees around at that time as well.

I almost was about to call it a day here when I learned that they were actually holding performances inside a building near the entrance/exit. Silly me, right? So, I go inside to cool down and enjoy a bit of a fashion show and more. But since it was hard to see from where I was sitting, I gave up on it and decided to end my day sooner than later.

Would I attend their Tet Festival again? Probably not. I might consider it if their event was for free but it’s not and it’s not as well run as I’d like for it to be, so my answer is basically a solid no. In So Cal, we are blessed to have a variety of Lunar New Year events, so not attending this Tet isn’t a biggie as you can probably find another Tet event going on elsewhere. (Try Westminster’s Asian Garden Mall area.) Tet specific events aside, you can easily find other Lunar New Year happenings in San Gabriel Valley, Los Angeles’ Chinatown, KTown and even Anaheim’s Disneyland.

With Lunar New Year events not existing this year per COVID, I hope this entry somehow was able to give you a taste of what a Lunar New Year event can be like as well as to wish anyone that celebrates Lunar New Year a Happy Lunar New Year!