What Is First-Footing and Why Do Vietnamese Value It?
Xong dat, also called dap dat, is the custom of choosing the first person to step into a home after the moment of giao thua or early on the morning of the first day of Tet. Old Vietnamese believed that person carried the year's fortune for the household, so choosing who it would be was considered very carefully. The core belief is simple: a good beginning makes the journey ahead smooth.
According to cultural researcher Dr. Tran Long, a lecturer in the Faculty of Cultural Studies at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National University Ho Chi Minh City, first-footing is a long-standing custom of the ancestors. Old Vietnamese believed first-footing influenced the household's fate throughout the year, so caution in choosing the person is understandable.
In spiritual depth, first-footing is seen as the first meeting between people, space, and new time. The moment of giao thua is treated as a turning point of time, and the person who crosses the threshold after that point is not merely a guest but the bearer of the year's fortune.
What Criteria Did Old Vietnamese Use to Choose the First Visitor?
The ideal first visitor usually met several traits: compatible age and destiny with the household and with the new year, avoiding conflicting or unlucky ages in old belief; a gentle, cheerful temperament and a habit of saying good things; a settled family life with no mourning and no recent major sorrow; a smooth life with good business, good studies, and a harmonious family; and being bright, healthy, and quick-footed, a symbol of vitality.
As Tet approached, people looked among relatives, neighbors, or friends for someone gentle, whose life was going well, and especially whose age was compatible, to ask them to do the first-footing. This was a community-based choice, resting on real knowledge of the person, not only on the year of birth.
Researcher Nguyen Vinh Phuc once distinguished two ways of choosing a person with good fortune for the first-footing. Officials and educated people chose a first visitor whose age was compatible with their own, and the first visitor had to be a man who was the family's pillar. For ordinary laborers it was simpler: the chosen person had to be healthy, good-natured, and from a well-off, harmonious household, and that was enough.
| Criterion | Officials and intellectuals | Ordinary laborers |
|---|---|---|
| Deciding factor | Compatible age with the household | Healthy, good-natured, well-off family |
| Gender of first visitor | Man, family pillar | Less strict than the group above |
| How determined | Reading age and zodiac | Observing character and life |
When and How Did Traditional First-Footing Take Place?
The best time for first-footing is right after giao thua or early on the morning of the first day of Tet. Usually the person asked to do the first-footing dressed neatly and properly, bringing a small gift or a red envelope to give the household.
The first-footing gift need not be valuable or large; it is symbolic, such as a bottle of Tet wine or a packet of good tea. First-footing could come with lucky money, mainly for children. Afterward the host would happily wish the visitor well in return and offer a few dishes or drinks.
Besides, the first visitor often spoke fine and beautiful words to wish the household a prosperous new year and all things as desired. In particular, people in mourning or families in discord or sorrow did not go to others' homes for first-footing during Tet.
Some families kept their doors shut on the morning of the first day, waiting for exactly the person they had asked to arrive before opening, to avoid trouble in the year. Because of that belief, on the first morning of Tet people often avoided early New Year visits and spent time going to pagodas, fearing that a first-footing might bring bad luck to a household and earn them blame. Adults often taught children to stay home on the first morning or play outside rather than enter anyone's house, lest they affect that family's luck.
Why Does First-Footing Persist Even When Seen Through a Scientific Eye?
If the spiritual shell is removed, choosing a first visitor actually rests on three very worldly psychological mechanisms. The first is the primacy effect, where first experiences can shape emotions and attitudes for a whole stretch of time that follows. The second is emotional contagion, where one positive person helps the whole family take on a good mindset. The third is positive self-suggestion, where believing in luck makes people act more confidently.
A warm first morning of the year, laughter ringing in the house, and kind wishes are enough for the brain to remember that year as a year worth living. Belief, in the end, is also a kind of real energy, quietly but persistently affecting human behavior. So the first visitor need not be perfect, only able to bring a feeling of reassurance and hope.
How Did First-Footing Differ Between Old Hanoi and Old Saigon?
In old Hanoi, first-footing was never a noisy affair. It was a soft step, entering the new year as if afraid to disturb the heaven and earth just waking. On the first morning, the streets were still sleepy, thin mist clung to dark brown tiled roofs, and the scent of agarwood slipped through wooden doors darkened by time. The chosen first visitor often came very early, clothes still carrying the cold of the winter night, voice small and gentle, bringing a few wishes warm enough for a long year.
Children pressed behind a half-open door, watching the first adult of the year enter the house. No one spoke loudly, no one hurried. A cup of hot tea was poured, a few old stories were retold as if to make time pass more slowly. First-footing then was not only a custom but a way for Hanoians to keep a slow rhythm of life and a quiet belief in good things.
During the evacuation years, amid scarcity and bombs, first-footing became even simpler: a neighbor dropped by with a sweet potato, a pot of tea, and a few words of peace. There was no full tray of food, only a fragile but warm belief that in the new year, we still had each other.
In Saigon and Ho Chi Minh City today, where the new year arrives under bright lights, with ceaseless traffic and a pace that waits for no one, first-footing has become lighter and faster, sometimes just a handshake, a brief visit, a phone call, a quick knock, or even no one left to do it. Many families do the first-footing for themselves by stepping out on the first day, finding an early coffee, a slow breath in a fast city.
First-Footing Services: Supply Meets Demand, but What Is Worth Discussing?
Worries about incompatible or conflicting ages make many people afraid to do first-footing, and many families search in vain for someone to do it for them. Today first-footing services have appeared because supply meets demand, yet viewed comprehensively there are many issues worth discussing.
In terms of combining yin and yang, the five elements, the zodiac, the three harmonies, and the four conflicting signs, it is almost impossible to choose a person with an ideal first-footing age. That person may be compatible with the household but this Tet may be a conflicting year or a personal unlucky month for them, or they may not know whether they should observe any taboos this year, such as a recent family mourning, personal hardship, or what folk speech calls a heavy aura.
In practical terms, even if a relatively compatible person is found, that person is a stranger, a service worker, someone with only one parameter, a compatible birth year, while the household knows nothing of other personal information such as temperament, life history, or individual qualities. Inviting such a stranger into one's home at the important first hour of the year almost goes against the custom of first-footing and the taboos of traditional Vietnamese culture.
It should also be distinguished from Santa Claus gift services. Those are services that arose recently through integration with Western culture, as a bit of fun for children at Christmas, and the essential meaning of Santa's gift-giving differs from first-footing. People do not blame Santa Claus if a child has a poor school year or falls ill, but they very much hope that they and their family will meet luck through a good first-footing age at the start of the year.
There are also tragicomic stories around first-footing and opening the shop, such as a stray cat or a neighborhood boy who happens to run over to play also being counted as first-footing or shop-opening, leaving the household anxious or deeply disappointed. Not to mention that an identity card may not show the true age of the first visitor for historical reasons, lost original papers, late birth registration, or because the solar year age differs from the lunar one. On the other hand, traffic jams and travel hitches making the first visitor late are very likely at giao thua, and no amount of compensation money reduces the household's inner worry of a year of bad luck.
What Forms Is First-Footing Taking Today?
Today many families have simplified the custom in a few directions. The household does the first-footing itself by stepping out of the house and back in after giao thua. Choosing the most beloved person, perhaps children or close friends. First-footing by wishes through a call, message, or video call at the start of the year. Or first-footing by oneself: waking early and doing the first good deed of the year.
A new form has also appeared: online first-footing. The first message, the first video call, the first status line after giao thua. People choose beautiful wishes, avoid arguments, avoid bad news, hoping the early-year energy in digital space will spread like the old footsteps on old bricks.
Each family can fully create its own Tet rituals, including first-footing, to suit circumstances, health, habits, and preferences, without affecting others or depending on anyone. Researcher Nguyen Phuc Giac Hai once said: if you want to choose a good first visitor for yourself, that person should be someone you feel happy to welcome, whatever their age.
How Should First-Footing Be Understood Correctly?
Its form may fade, but the spirit of first-footing has never been lost. The core is not age or destiny but the life energy the first visitor brings: a smile, a wish, a light step opening the new year. That is how ancient Vietnamese conversed with the invisible, asking for a peaceful beginning for the family and for themselves.
This article presents first-footing according to the folk convention common in the North and major cities, where age-reading and choosing a person are most recorded in cultural documents. Other regions may have variations in timing, the gender of the first visitor, or the degree of strictness about age. From a scientific view, this is a symbolic and psychological custom, not a tool for predicting fate. Readers should see it as a cultural beauty to preserve, not turn it into pressure or a basis for judging the year's luck.
Perhaps the most important thing about first-footing is not who steps in first but with what mindset we enter the new year. If the heart is still kind, the words still warm, and the belief still there, then whether the door opens with an old wooden bolt or a WiFi signal, the new year can still begin with a peaceful step.
