Vietnamese do not generally celebrate individual birthdays beyond the first month/year. The older generations usually only refer to their animal sign based on the Vietnamese zodiac, which is similar to the Chinese one. In fact, on Tet (Vietnamese New Year), it is considered everyone's birthday, and people officially add another year on that day. Death anniversaries are the ones that people celebrate and remember the exact dates.
During the mass exodus of the boat people, many only had time to collect family members and a few valuables. Legal records (or family books) were often left behind. However, even for those who managed to remember to grab such documents, the records usually indicated the dates of when the activity (e.g., birth, marriage) were recorded rather than the actual event dates. [For this reason, I have a 'conspiracy theory' about me being adopted or a soldier's love child. => moments that matter (part 3)] In some situations, families were so large that parents had difficulty remembering even the Vietnamese zodiac sign of each child.
Because of that, one of my friends has two birthdays (well, three if you count Tet) - one is her legal one and the other is her true birthdate. They are two years and a month apart. A local tradition is that the birthday person picks up the tab, which is probably a way to discourage people from celebrating birthdays. So today is her birthday, and although she is Vietkieu from Canada, she (well, her husband) paid. The best part is that we get to do it again next month. Like the saying goes, 'when in Rome...'
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