On Sunday, Melbourne’s north-western suburb of St Albans hosted the first of Melbourne’s five annual Lunar New Year Festivals.

The event last year attracted over 70,000 visitors to St Albans.

This year marked the suburb’s 20^th consecutive year running the colourful festival.

Lion dances, live entertainment and Vietnamese food stalls serving aromatic and flavoursome traditional cuisines, all took place in the lead up to the Vietnamese Lunar New Year, also known as Tet.

This year Tet falls on January 28 and celebrates the year of the Rooster.

The annual festivals mark an important celebration in Vietnamese culture and signifies the arrival of spring, based on the Vietnamese calendar. They also continue to draw in big crowds each year.

Ross Morfea helped organised the St Albans event.

“It’s pretty hot at the moment but once it cools down a little bit, it will be absolutely flat-out. The next couple of hours will be flat-out and it’s like that every year,” he said.

“People love coming to St Albans because it’s a really fun day, it’s a really good family event,” Mr Morfea added.

The event also attracted visitors from different cultures to partake in the vibrant, flamboyant and traditionally rich experience.

Meanwhile, a festival go-er who was an international student from Vietnam said the festivities were a good reminder of her home.

“For me as well as other Vietnamese students in Australia, when we have festivals like this, it helps us feel less homesick because many of us don’t have the chance to go back home to join our families during the Lunar New Year holiday”, Bui Thanh Huyen said.

One of the food stalls called Giang Nhi Food, which has been a part of the festivals for more than 10 years – sells Vietnamese food including rices cakes with mixed eggs, Vietnamese mini-pancakes and Vietnamese beef in beetle leaves.

Owner Tran Kim Nhi said she enjoyed selling Vietnamese food at the festival, “I feel so excited participating in this festival… I can sell Vietnamese traditional food which reminds me of my home country. It’s like something that’s part of our cultures that we will never forget.”

The next festival will be hosted by Footscray this Sunday, followed by celebrations in Richmond, Springvale and the Melbourne Show Grounds in Ascot Vale in the coming weeks.

– TiVi Tuan-san