A space for artisans from across the country to showcase their products and skills is the highlight will be the eighth Hue Traditional Craft Festival from April 26 to May 2.— Photo qdnd.vn

With the theme “The Quintessence of Vietnamese Crafts”, the festival will honour the value of heritage and raise the production quality of traditional trade villages.

Various trades will be featured including embroidery, bronze casting, Zèng textiles, paper flowers, sewing, essential oils, lion dancing and pottery.

The event will forge connections between trade villages and investors, and promote traditional handicrafts alongside tourism products.

The organisers confirmed the festival would have the participation of 350 artisans from famous craft villages nationwide and 17 international delegations from 11 countries such as South Korea, China, Japan, Brazil and Turkey.

The foreign artisans will introduce their crafts of making pottery, masks, bamboo/rattan objects and costumes.

“This is an opportunity for artisans to show their talents and the quintessence of Vietnamese traditional crafts,” said Nguyen Van Thanh, head of the organising board.

“It’s a high-quality, effective event in both a national and international scope and will help contribute to promoting the image of Hue and develop its traditional craft villages and handicraft sector.”

“This fabulous cultural-economic event will extol the values of heritage, and boost the production and efficiency of traditional crafts. It is also expected to promote partnerships and attract investments in an attempt to improve socio-economic growth via links between handicraft production and tourism.”

The festival will bring together various programmes such as exhibitions and introducing traditional products of domestic and foreign traditional crafts; the rite to commemorate the patrons of all crafts; the procession honoring artisans and craft villages; áo dài fashion show with designs by Minh Hanh, Diego Cortizas from Chula brand, Ngoc Han and Ha Duy; and a gastronomy festival.

The Fiesta “Colours of Childhood” will take place at the Hue Children’s Cultural House, 8 Le Loi Street. It will feature music concerts and other community activities to inspire children to be proud of their traditional crafts and cultural heritages.

A Hot Air Balloon Festival showcasing performances from Vietnam, the Netherlands, Thailand, Japan and Malaysia will be held on April 27-29 at Ham Nghi Court.

In addition, visitors to the festival can join tours to craft villages, crafts spaces and historical places such as the Royal Citadel, Thanh Tien Village (paper flower), Sình Village (folk paintings) and Phuoc Tich Village (pottery). Organised biennially by Hue's People’s Committee, the festival is a part of activities to celebrate the 230th anniversary of King Quang Trung (Nguyen Hue)’s victory against the Chinese Qing invaders (1789), the 120th anniversary of the establishment of Hue (July 12, 1899), and the 120th anniversary of Dong Ba Market and Truong Tien Bridge, two remarkable feats of architecture in the city.

VNS