MUSIC & PERFORMANCES

The year 2020 has passed with unprecedented developments in the field of culture as many activities were “frozen” or took place in moderation and have recovered only somewhat over the few last months.

The Friends of Vietnam Heritage on Sunday will hold a talk about nghê – a sacred animal that guards temples, communal houses in Vietnam. The talk is to honour the Vietnam’s Cultural Heritage Day on November 23.

The “Nhay lua” (fire jumping) ceremony of the Red Dao ethnic minority people in the northern mountainous province of Ha Giang has been listed as a national intangible heritage.

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism has decided to add 23 cultural icons to the list of national intangible cultural heritages.

For the Pa Ko ethnic people, taking care of ancestral tombs is not a family’s private affair, but the responsibility of the whole village.

Huong Viet, an online magazine of the Vietnamese community in Germany, on September 12 joined a multicultural festival in Augsburg in the southern state of Bayern, 

Preserving ethnic culture is a tough challenge in the modern world. In Thai Hai hamlet, Thai Nguyen province, preserving the language, costumes, folklore, and customs of Vietnam’s Tay ethnic minority is a task for every family.

Vu Duc Hieu, director of the Muong Cultural Space Museum, has won the 2020 Jeonju International Awards for Promoting Intangible Cultural Heritage (JIAPICH), which is expected to be presented in an online form on September 15.

In late June, a special show of more than 1,000 Ao Dai (Vietnamese traditional long dresses) patterns, entitled “Ao Dai – Vietnam’s cultural heritage”, was held at the Van Mieu – Quoc Tu Giam (Temple of Literature) in Hanoi.

Thai ethnic people in the Northwestern region are renowned for their traditional craft of brocade weaving that has been preserved for many generations.

Clay statues are a traditional type of toy in Vietnam and popular during the Mid-Autumn Festival and Lunar New Year (Tet). 

People in the northern province of Hung Yen are working diligently to revive the golden days of Ca Tru ceremonial singing which has been recognised as a Masterpiece of Oral and Intangible Cultural Heritage by UNESCO.

The Northern border province of Lang Son is famous for Then and Sli singing of the Nung ethnic people as over the years a number of local artists have made every effort to preserve and promote these folk melodies.

Thai people have still observed a singing custom at weddings called “khap xong khuoi, ton pau” which means singing to bid farewell to the son and welcome the new daughter in-law.

The northern province of Lao Cai is home to a large number of culturally rich and diverse ethnic minorities groups. 

Installation of art in public places in Vietnam is essential to the development of smart cities and their cultural life, Ho Chi Minh City’s artists and cultural experts have said.

Underground wells which were closely linked to the lives of Vietnamese citizens can be found throughout the northern delta, especially in rural areas, with many dug approximately half a century ago still in use today in Hanoi’s Old Quarter.

Nong Dung Long, a Nung ethnic minority man in Phon Xuong Town, Yen The District, Bac Giang Province, said that today many Nung people cannot speak their traditional language so he recorded their folk songs in a notebook.

Marriage and children have been hot topics in Vietnam of late, thanks to the Government’s announcement that it wants people to marry before 30 and have two kids before 35, with tax breaks and other policies on offer to encourage procreation.