Ba Chua Xu festival kicks off in An Giang; Cultural exchange in Vientiane marks President Ho’s birthday; Reader’s club for children debuts in Hanoi

Tens of thousands of visitors flocked to the Nui Sam trade centre in Chau Doc town, An Giang province on May 15 to attend the ninth Ba Chua Xu festival.

Many traditional rituals will be held during the programme from May 15-21 including a procession and a washing rite of the statue of Ba Chua.

Diverse activities will also be held such as a dragon dance performance, a mountain climbing competition, a boat racing competition, a boxing contest and special performances by Khmer, Kinh and Hoa ethnic groups.

The event aims to honour the country’s cultural heritage sites and acknowledge the great contributions made by its ancestors.

Cultural exchange in Vientiane marks President Ho’s birthday

A cultural exchange programme between Laos and Vietnam was conducted in the capital Vientiane in Laos on May 15 as part of activities to celebrate the late President Ho Chi Minh’s 119th birthday (May 19).

Addressing the function, Vietnamese ambassador Ta Minh Chau and Lao officials highlighted President Ho’s great contributions to the revolution in Vietnam and three Indochinese countries as well as to the struggle for national liberation across the world.

They noted that both President Ho Chi Minh of Vietnam and President Kaysone Phovihan of Laos were the first to lay a foundation for building the special friendship between the two countries. They added that this relationship has been maintained and constantly built up by generations of leaders and the people of the two countries and has become an exemplary role model in the world.

At the event, Vietnamese and Lao artists performed songs and dances in praise of President Ho, the victory at Dien Bien Phu valley against French colonialists 55 years ago, the victory of the historic Ho Chi Minh campaign culminating in total liberation of south Vietnam in 1975 and the special solidarity between Vietnam and Laos.

Reader’s club for children debuts in Hanoi

Nightingale, a reader’s club for children, made its debut at the Hanoi Library on May 16.

The club is part of the “support for children’s literature” project funded by the Danish Government for the 2006-2010 period to encourage the development of children’s literature in Vietnam.

The project, implemented by the Kim Dong Publishing House and the Hanoi and Danish Writers’ Associations, focuses on improving the capacity of Vietnamese authors and illustrators, to help Vietnamese children gain access to good books.

So far the project has set up 13 readers’ clubs in Hanoi, HCM City, the southern coastal province of Ba Ria-Vung Tau, the central provinces of Nghe An, Ha Tinh and Thanh Hoa, and the northern mountainous provinces of Tuyen Quang, Thai Nguyen and Phu Tho with a total of 7,000 books and 410 titles.

Under the project, groups of writers and illustrators have visited these clubs annually to provide books and meet with readers as well as to inspire children’s love of reading and creativity.

The project will start up similar clubs in the provinces of Bac Ninh and Hoa Binh later this year.

PV