Preparation for the festival done

Mr. Pham Thanh Nhu, Director of Hau Giang Department of Culture, Sports, and Tourism, the head of the subcommittee responsible for activities of culture, sports, and tourism: preparation for the festival done.

The Vietnam National Rice Festival is becoming a burning issue day by day. The preparation is entering its final phase. The subcommittee organizing Ngo Boat Race, The South Amateur Singing Festival, Floating Market Imitation, Cuisine Festival … is finishing its preparation jobs. Mr. Phan Thanh Nhu, the head of the subcommittee responsible for culture, sports, and tourism said: 80% of the preparation job of our subcommittee has been done. At this Rice Festival, there will be Southern Amateur Singing Festival, Cuisine Festival, Floating Market Imitation, Ngo Boat Race. We have contacted participating teams and they are ready. This week, we are going to build the Cuisine Festival’s site with typical features of Mekong Delta region.

*Sir, among the activities of festivals, races, performances, which is the emphasis at the Festival this time?
Each activity has its own interestingness and all of them contribute to the richness of the Festival. Take the Cuisine Festival, people can enjoy unique dishes from different regions made of rice or originated from rice in about 60 sections. Attendants will wear traditional southern loose fitting blouses (Ao Ba Ba)… The imitation of floating markets will bring guests into a totally different atmosphere unique to this region of waters. The scenes of doing business and bargaining on the river will be introduced in a small space but warm and charming with sweet crying of one’s wares, chanteys, popular airs, Vọng Cổ singing … The Ngo boat race is an activity of cultural feature of the Khmer people in the South of Vietnam.

As for the Southern Amateur Singing Festival, this kind of singing has been performed in many provinces and cities in recent years. However, at this Festival, the artists’ musical skill and singing are not only for exchanging but will be rated in order to grant titles to the participants – which has not been done at previous festivals. This competition is at the national level with the supervision of the local Cultural Office under the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism.

*Sir, a special complex of statues is said to be put along the Xa No park in Hau Giang?

Model of statue park

This is an initiative to sharpen the beauty and imposingness of the park to mark 1,000 years of Thang Long – Hanoi. There will be 20 statues chosen from 40 works from well-known Vietnamese sculptors. The selection will be carried out by a prestigious Arts Board. The job now is being done promptly in Binh Duong province. The statues will be transported and put along the park one by one within this week to welcome the National Rice Festival.

*As for cultural and artistic organizations of Hau Giang province, what do they prepare to perform at this Festival?

Apart from joining other cultural and artistic troupes to carry out the general performance plans, each specialized body will organize concrete and lifelike activities to depict Hau Giang’s own features to please guests. While the Center for Tourism Promotion provides Floating Market Imitation with boats, the Cultural Center makes 20 flower vehicles for the parade and organizes night performances of the South Amateur Singing on satellite stages … Especially for the Ngo Boat Race, 6 teams of Hau Giang’s communes and towns are having intensive trainings in order to come to the competition with the best performance. As for the Amateur Singing Festival, Nga Bay troupe is assigned to work out a program to perform. We hope to bring surprises to the Festival this time.

We have ordered Hau Giang’s General Performing Arts Troupe to build programs to show at the Festival, especially to join Thang Long Theater (Hanoi) to perform on the main stage on the evening of November 30th. These programs have been rehearsed for nearly two months and are almost perfect now. The majority of numbers in the program will introduce Hau Giang’s people and land.

*Thank you for the interview.

by VINH TRA