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Punishment requested for love duet dissenter
When an expert from the Vietnam Culture and Art
Institute spoke out about how Quan Ho love duets were being performed he ended
up being threatened with punishment.
Quan Ho songs recognised as world intangible heritage
Officials of the Vietnam Culture and Art Institute and Bac Ninh province and
some quan ho senior artists recently asked the culture ministry to punish
researcher Bui Trong Hien for “offending the quan ho community”.
Why?
In an interview with a local newspaper, Hien commented: “At present, there
are people who know how to sing quan ho folk songs but they are not true quan ho
artists. The remaining quan ho artists are considered as ‘natural resources” to
be exploited by the quan ho society”.
Hien also said that the unique characters of quan ho like hat canh, ket cha and
ngu bon have disappeared. Quan ho is being commercialised and deformed.
Hien’s comments was severely opposed by the officials of his institute, the
Vietnam Culture and Art Institute.
Some quan ho artisans from Bac Ninh province sent a petition to the Ministry of
Culture, Sports and Tourism saying that Hien “terribly offended the people of
quan ho villages” and his comments made “the quan ho community ashamed and
disappointed”.
The Vietnam Culture and Art Institute’s officials and officials of the Bac Ninh
provincial Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism also sent a dispatch to the
Ministry, requesting discipline for researcher Bui Trong Hien and forcing Hien
to apologise to Bac Ninh quan ho artisans in the media.
Hien told Dat Viet newspaper: “I don’t understand why they manage to accuse me
of offending the quan ho community. What I commented is the results of my
research for several years”.
He said that while surveying and choosing songs to record and shoot for the file
of Bac Ninh folk songs to submit to the UNESCO for recognising as “world
intangible cultural heritage”, he observed the situation of quan ho in Bac Ninh
at the insistence of local officials.
Hien confirmed that his comments are based on his surveys and interviews with
senior quan ho artists like Nguyen Thi Khuou, Nguyen Thi Nguyen and Ngo Thi Nhi.
“Late scholars Hong Thao and Tran Linh Quy told me the real nature of quan ho.
Looking back to the history, one can see that quan ho has been turned from a
hobby into a commercial art. Modern quan ho is now accompanied by pop-styled
music so it is not wrong to say that it is deformed,” Hien explained.
An arbitration council needed
The change and commercialisation of quan ho is not a new matter. This
problem has been reported by many newspapers. Many leading professors and
doctors of folk culture agreed with Hien.
Prof. Dr. Ngo Duc Thinh, a member of the National Cultural Heritage Council,
agrees that quan ho is deformed and is fading away.
“We told UNESCO about hat canh, ket cha and ngu bon but these things have lost,”
Thinh said.
Prof. PhD. To Ngoc Thanh several times warned of this situation. In a workshop
about cultural heritages, he said: “What is called quan ho village doesn’t exist
nowadays. Quan ho is now performed on the stage, with amplification where quan
ho singers ask for money like beggars in the old time”.
The famous scholars said that this situation is as a result of the policy to
“modernize” quan ho.
Prof. Tran Van Khe said: “UNESCO’s experts honor quan ho because they saw the
unique characteristics of quan ho in our file, such as ngu bon, ket ban, etc.
I’m worryied that if they come to Vietnam to listen to the modern quan ho, they
will not see these special features”.
Prof. To Ngoc Thanh said that researcher Hien has the right to express his
opinion as a researcher of folk music.
“If anyone thinks that Hien’s opinion is wrong, they should debate it with Hien.
If it is needed, an arbitration council can be set up to judge,” Prof. Thanh
said.
Quan họ singing is a Vietnamese folk music style characterized both by its
antiphonal nature, with alternating groups of female and male singers issuing
musical challenges and responses, and by the fact that most of the songs in the
repertoire deal with topics of love and sentimentality as experienced by young
adults.
The quan họ style originated in what is now Bac Ninh province around the 13th
century, and has traditionally been associated with the spring festivals that
follow the celebration of Tet.
Source: VietNamNet/VNE |
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