Largest-ever Chinese Festival enlivens southern metro

Largest-ever Chinese Festival enlivens southern metro

The Chinese-Vietnamese Lunar New Year Cultural Festival, the largest event of its kind in Vietnam opened Wednesday in Ho Chi Minh City, with performances captivating thousands in the audience.

Over 2,000 performing artists from 22 Vietnamese performance troupes and their counterparts from Hong Kong joined in the festival, organized at the city’s April 30 Park by the Ministry of Culture and Information and the HCMC People’s Committee. The event’s opening ceremony yesterday saw the attendance of a number of Vietnamese high-ranked officials including Minister of Culture and Information Le Doan Hop, Minister - Head of Ethnic Committee Ksor Phuoc, Deputy Head of Vietnamese Fatherland Front Cu Hoa Van, Chairman of HCMC People’s Committee Le Hoang Quan, among others. Addressing the inauguration, Deputy Minister of Culture and Information Dinh Quang Ngu emphasized the importance of the event, saying that Vietnam respects and cares for the preservation and improvement of ethnic culture in general, and that of Chinese community in particular. “The cheerful festival and motivated atmosphere will elevate the people’s determination for a new year full of achievements,” said Ngu. On the occasion, Chairman of HCM People’s Committee, Le Hoang Quan highly valued the contributions of the Chinese-Vietnamese people to the development of the city. Quan said the Chinese community has actively joined in the municipal variety of social and charity works such as offering houses to the poor, looking after the Vietnamese heroic mothers, assisting needy patients, students, and victims of natural disasters. In the coming days, the celebration would incorporate musical performances, traditional fashion shows, dragon dances, folk games, calligraphic art exhibitions, Chinese food and more. Chinese-Vietnamese historical, revolutionary and cultural sites would be open to the public and a seminar on “Building cultural life for the Chinese community in Vietnam in the new era” was scheduled to be held. The Chinese-Vietnamese community’s key festivals, such as the Mid-autumn festival, the Lunar New Year and the Mid-winter festival would be dramatized in short plays during the event. Running until March 4, the event’s closing ceremony will be broadcast on HCMC Television (HTV), and aims to promote the unique cultural traditions of the city’s 600,000 residents of Chinese origin, Vietnam’s largest ethnic minority community. Source: Thanh Nien, Nguoi Lao Dong, Tuoi Tre – Compiled by Luu Thi Hong