Three Gods Who Watch Over Every Household

Tao Quan, the Kitchen Gods, are a triad of household deities in Vietnamese folk religion, traditionally explained through a folk tale of two men and a woman whose tangled, tragic love triangle ends with all three dying together and being transformed by the Jade Emperor into the three Kitchen Gods, tasked jointly with overseeing a household's domestic affairs and reporting annually on the family's conduct. Each year, on the twenty-third day of the twelfth lunar month, shortly before Tet, the Vietnamese lunar new year, Vietnamese households traditionally hold a ceremony sending the Tao Quan off to heaven to deliver their report to the Jade Emperor, an occasion marked by offerings and, distinctively, the ritual release of live carp, since folk belief holds that the Tao Quan travel to heaven riding on the backs of carp, which are set free in a river, pond or lake as part of the send-off. The Tao Quan then return to the household after Tet to resume their watch for the coming year, giving the ceremony a clear annual rhythm tightly bound to the wider new year festival cycle.