The Ministry of Culture,
Sports and Tourism recently opened an exhibition of flowers and held a
referendum on choosing the national flower in the central city of Da Nang. Over 97 percent
of the votes supported the pink lotus.

The exhibition
organizers delivered 12,000 votes in Da
Nang and collected 11,563 votes from April 26 – May 1.
Up to 11,297 votes or 97.69 percent supported pink lotus as Vietnam’s national flower.

Of 2,022 votes
delivered at the exhibition alone, up to 1,955 or 96.98 percent chose pink
lotus.

On two official
websites for national flower voting (www.cinet.vn and ), over
60 percent select pink lotus, in comparison with 25 percent for peach flower,
and over 14 percent for yellow apricot.

A similar
exhibition and poll will be held in HCM
City from June 1-5.

At a similar
exhibition and referendum held in Hanoi
on March 2011, over 40 percent voted for the pink lotus as national flower, the
highest rate.

The Ministry of
Culture, Sports and Tourism will report to the Government, the results of the
three referendums in the three largest cities in Vietnam,
and propose for the National Assembly to recognize the national flower of Vietnam.

The Ministry of
Culture, Sports and Tourism set six criteria for selecting Vietnam’s national
flower, including: being sourced from Vietnam or grown in Vietnam for a very
long time; being adaptable to Vietnamese weather and grow everywhere in the
country, blossoming year round or for a long time in the year; showing the
culture and traditional, will, manner and aspiration of Vietnamese, and being
beautiful and fragrant.

Many species of
flowers have been suggested, such as peach, areca, yellow apricot, rose,
bamboo, etc. However, most of people support lotus.

PV