HCM City celebrates ethnic culture day

      Traditional music and dances of the Cham, Khmer, Hoa and Kinh communities will be performed tonight to celebrate the first ever Vietnamese Ethnic Groups’ Culture Day on Sunday.
Hundreds of pictures depicting the cultural and spiritual life of the Kinh, Hoa, Cham and Khmer people in HCM City will also be displayed in the exhibition titled Ban Sac Van Hoa Cac Dan Toc Tren Dia Ban TPHCM" (Cultural Traits of Peoples in HCM City) at District 5’s Cultural Centre.
Featured in the music and dance programme will be Chinese traditional music, don ca tai tu (traditional southern folk music) and Cham and Khmer dances performed by artists from the Bong Sen (Lotus) Theatre.
The HCM City Information and Exhibition Centre will open an exhibition featuring images of Viet Nam’s 54 ethnic groups at the Lam Son Park in District 1.
South goes North
The centre will also bring the Kinh and Hoa traditional musical forms to a two-day festival at the Dong Mo Commune in Ha Noi’s Son Tay Town to celebrate the Ethnic Groups’ Culture Day. The festival in the capital city will also host an exhibition titled Dau An Van Hoa Cua Dong Bao Hoa TP HCM (HCM City Hoa People’s Cultural Imprints) presenting 10 water-colour and calligraphy works by Hoa artisans.
Ethnic Hoa painter Truong Han Minh will demonstrate his calligraphy and finish a water-colour on Dong Mo before presenting them to the Viet Nam Culture and Tourism Village.
Fruit sculpture
Artisan Nam Dum will create the 1.4m high and 1.6m wide fruit sculpture using papaya, mandarin, grapefruit, mango, mangosteen, pear, apple and coconut.
All Kinh and Hoa artisans who participate in the festival will wear their traditional ao dai with khan dong (turbans) and trousers or skirts with five-panel vests.
The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism says the festival celebrating the nation’s first Ethnic Groups’ Culture Day will attract about 1,500 artists and artisans from 33 cities and provinces.
The festivities will be broadcast live on the VTV1 channel on Sunday night.