When Nguyễn Du described the spiritual encounter between Kiều and Đạm Tiên, he wrote:
"Ào ào đổ lộc rung cây,
Ở trong dường có hương bay ít nhiều."
(The wind rustled, showering buds and shaking trees,
And faintly, the scent of incense wafted through the air.)

That drifting fragrance lingers on the threshold between the phenomenal and the non-phenomenal, gliding between the realms of the living and the dead, wandering freely between the visible and the invisible worlds. Perhaps that is why people use incense to communicate with those persons and realms that words can barely touch? No one can say for sure. What we do know is that, for a long time, the custom of burning incense has been deeply rooted in Vietnamese Tết traditions. Incense offered to ancestors becomes a sacred "scent of time," allowing us to "see" the fleeting shadows of the boundless past in our finite present.

We are honored to present to you the next heartfelt letter in our Tết series — “The Incense Ritual” — from Bán Nguyệt Tâm Thư Khố, a student-led podcast series supported by the Vietnam Studies Center.

In this episode, we invite you to reflect with Dr. Nguyễn Nam—Ph.D. in East Asian Language and Culture from Harvard University and currently a faculty member in Vietnam Studies at Fulbright University—on the meaning of the incense-burning ritual, as well as the transformations in Tết customs from past to present.

Wishing all our listeners a warm and fragrant Tết, rich in sights, sounds, tastes, and scents.