Dak Lak to celebrate first culture week; HCMC to host northern cooking festival; Heritage exhibition opens in HCMC; Hanoi’s lesser-known history collected; Biggest-ever national linguistics seminar held in Hanoi

“It is a very grand ceremony for Central Highland people,” said Y Wai Bya, director of the provincial department of Culture, Sports and Tourism.

Since traditional times, the main source of water supply in the highlands has come from the upper sections of the rivers and streams, making these important places for the community.

Elephants will be other main feature of the Legend of Central Highland Elephant Festival during the cultural week. “In addition to gong culture, elephants are typical to the region,” said Tran Sy Thanh, deputy chairman of the provincial People’s Committee.

There will be 30 elephants taking part in the festival with competitions including an elephant football match, an elephant running race, a swimming race, and an elephant competition.

Other activities include a fire festival, a highland ethnic fashion show, roadside festivities, a wood sculpture camp, a food gala and a commerce and trade exhibition.

Dak Lak is located in the centre of the highlands with a population of 1.8 million covering 13,125sq.km. It owes its rapid development to coffee and rubber production.

HCMC to host northern food festival

A northern food festival will be held in Ho Chi Minh City from December 11 to 13 to commemorate the 1,000th anniversary of the founding of Hanoi.

The city Department of Culture, Sports, and Tourism told the media November 26 it would organize the event at Van Thanh Tourist Area together with the Binh Quoi Tourist Village.

The festival will also recreate a countryside market in the northern area in old times and showcase folk arts, folk games, and traditional trades.

The event is expected to attract around 8,000 visitors.

Heritage exhibition opens in HCMC

An exhibition of Vietnamese documents written using Chinese characters and other artifacts opened November 25 at the Ho Chi Minh City General Sciences Library on the occasion of Vietnam’s Cultural Heritage Day (November 23).

Around 100 objects and paper, silk, bronze, and terracotta documents will be on display until November 27.

On the same day, the exhibition organizers held a workshop titled “Sino-Nom documents – Conservation and expansion of the cultural heritage” which was attended by more than 100 researchers and collectors.

The exhibition is being organized by the Library Department in association with the National Library and HCMC General Sciences Library.

Hanoi’s lesser-known history collected

Over 400 volumes of documents about Hanoi have been collected as part of a program to document the capital’s rich history in the lead up to its 1,000th anniversary celebration next year.

Program organizers said more than 9,000 pages from those volumes were written by British and Dutch writers working in Thang Long before it was renamed Hanoi hundreds of years ago.

The documents are a good reflection of economics, politics, culture, religion and lifestyles in 17th-century Thang Long, organizers said.

Some of the materials document important events that can’t be found in Vietnamese history books.

The program was jointly launched by the Hanoi Publishing House and Hanoi National University Institute of Vietnamese Studies and Development Sciences in 2007.

Scientists and historians from across the globe have sent historical materials to the program.

Biggest-ever national linguistics seminar held in Hanoi

A national seminar on the Party and State’s policy on linguistics during the process of national industrialisation and modernisation was held in Hanoi on November 26 by the Social Science Institute of Vietnam.

On addressing the seminar, Pro. Dr Nguyen Van Khang, Deputy Head of the Institute of the Social Science Institute of Vietnam said that this is the biggest-ever national linguistics seminar to be held for 20 years as 123 reports from researchers throughout the country were submitted.

The seminar focused on five major issues related to the relationship between the Vietnamese language and ther dialects of ethnic minority groups, the Vietnamese language’s status during the process of national industrialisation and modernisation, the development of Vietnamese as a national language, the role and function of the Vietnamese language and globalisation and the use of foreign languages in Vietnam.

Saving Han-Nom heritage

The HCM City General Sciences Library will hold a cultural-heritage conference on preserving historic Han-Nom documents on November 26.

Nearly 100 participants including researchers and collectors, experts from the Vietnam National Library, the municipal Culture, Sports, and Tourism Department, and from Da Nang to Ca Mau libraries will discuss ways to preserve the old documents in Nom (old Vietnamese ideographic script adapted from Han Chinese script).

The General Sciences Library, National Library, and archives and information agencies will also talk about their experiences in collecting ancient documents, preserving and promoting their values.

Bui Xuan Duc, director of the city General Sciences Library, said after the loss of many Han-Nom documents due to storms in Hue city and Phu Yen, the library is collecting them from the region for restoration and digitalisation.

The library is sending staff to Thanh Hoa, Nghe An and Ha Tinh provinces to find old papers relating to the location of Sai Gon-Gia Dinh, from the time when Nguyen Huu Canh first discovered the southern land.

A collection of more than 100 articles and documents written in Han-Nom scripts including books, seals and administration papers form libraries, collectors and researchers like Nguyen Van Pham and Tran Dinh Son will be exhibited soon.

The conference and exhibition are being organised by the city library, Library Department and National Library to mark Vietnam Cultural Heritage Day on November 23 and to report the first phase of the project of collecting and digitalising Han-Nom documents in Hue and Phu Yen.

PV