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Asia Pacific|How Extreme Weather Scrambled a Lunar New Year Tradition in Vietnam
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/28/world/asia/lunar-new-year-vietnam-kumquats.html
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A typhoon and extreme heat dramatically affected prices for the kumquat trees that are ubiquitous during the holiday.
Jan. 28, 2025, 8:00 p.m. ET
In Hanoi and other Vietnamese cities at this time of year, potted kumquat trees fastened to motorbike seats dodge and weave through traffic in a haze of orange. Families buy them as symbols of luck and good fortune for the new Lunar New Year, which started on Wednesday.
This year a typhoon and extreme heat dented the harvest, scrambling prices for kumquats and other ornamental plants associated with the holiday, which is known as Tet in Vietnam. Some people bought smaller kumquats or switched to less expensive options, like orchids or persimmon branches.
Ornamental plant farmers are now stuck with unsold inventory after months of price swings in the market. In the case of kumquats, wholesale prices initially rose because of limited supply. Then they cratered for a lack of demand linked to consumer jitters and a perception that this year’s golf-ball-size kumquat fruits do not look very pretty.
“We’re all in a sad mood,” Nguyen Thi Hoa, 39, who grows kumquat trees near Hanoi’s Red River, said of the ornamental plant farmers in her corner of the capital. Unsold kumquat trees stood beside her, each selling for about 600,000 Vietnamese dong, or $24. That is at least 40 percent less than in a typical year.
It would be hard to overstate how important the Lunar New Year is to Vietnamese people — imagine Christmas and Thanksgiving combined — or how ubiquitous kumquat trees are across Vietnam and parts of neighboring China as the holiday approaches. The squat citrus plants are a regular presence in living rooms, shops and office lobbies.
In September, Typhoon Yagi flooded farmland and damaged crops across northern Vietnam during a critical growing period for kumquats and other ornamental staples of Lunar New Year. Ms. Hoa said floodwaters from the storm killed about half of the 500 kumquat trees she had planted.
