The third colourful festival of drink, flowers and parallel sentences (the fun art of creating parallel sentences along a giant floor-canvas), opened on Thursday in the capital to welcome Tet (Lunar New Year festival).

A calligrapher at the festival.

The annual festival is entertaining visitors with traditional and modern festivities, aimed at reviving the nation’s cultural beauties as well as becoming an entertainment hot-spot for city residents.

Many well-known Vietnamese wine-merchants joined forces with organisers to bring the very best of the country’s prestigious wine to entertain the festival’s visitors.

More than a thousand paralleled sentences were sent to the organising committee this year, celebrating the country’s development and honouring the country’s personalities.

Festival visitors can save valuable time by doing their Tet shopping there. A wide range of consumer goods are on display there, from general household goods and handicrafts to pottery and confectionery.

Competitive contests organised by wine-producers, calligraphers and parallel sentence writers are heating up the festival. The finest wines will be picked by a panel of connoisseurs for awards next Tuesday.

The event’s organisers have arranged gong show performances, and wine-tasting evenings to spice up the beverage festival.

This year’s festivities run until next Tuesday at the Viet Nam Culture and Arts Exhibition Centre, 2 Hoa Lu Street, Ha Noi, with both indoor and outdoor sites.

The Ministry of Health, Ministry of Trade, the Ministry of Science and Technology, and the Viet Nam’s Beer, Wine and Soft Drinks Corporation have joined with the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism to host the event.

(Source: VNS)