Ethnology museum celebrates Tet with diverse programme

Multi-cultural: Visitors join in a traditional ethnic Thai dance at the Viet Nam Museum of Ethnology festival last year. — Photo courtesy Viet Nam Museum of Ethnology

HA NOI — The Viet Nam Museum of Ethnology will hold its annual Tet (Lunar New Year) celebrations on February 6-8, with music, food and games – and the participation of 90 representatives from six ethnic groups from around the country.

The Raglai from the central province of Ninh Thuan and the Dao Lo Gang and Na Mieo from the northern province of Lang Son will be participating in the holiday programme for the first time.

Traditional performances will include gong ceremonies of the Raglai, prayers for peace and good crops by the Na Mieo, Tay and Dao Lo Gang, the lion dance of the Nung, and the bamboo pole dance of the Thai, as well as calligraphy, water puppetry of the Kinh majority.

Kids will be able to join in a variety of folk games, including swinging, wrestling, walking on stilts, chess playing and stick pushing. They also be able to make their own folk toys under the instruction of ethnic people, including making figurines and pinwheels.

This year, visitors will be able to enjoy traditional food from the Tay ethnic group, such as roast pig with mac mat (a type of wild leaf), steamed glutinous rice, dried buffalo meat and traditional cakes.

About 150 student volunteers will join museum staff in helping visitors enjoy the events.

The events would help preserve and popularise the precious cultural traditions of Viet Nam, said museum director Vo Quang Trong.

Visitors would gain a better understanding of the cultures of the different ethnic groups, as well as join in the spirit of the festivities, Trong said. — VNS

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San Diu folk songs fade with time

Few people of San Diu group now can sing Soong Co folk songs. Local authorities has begun a project to preserve the art together with other cultural values of local ethnic groups. - VNS File Photo

TUYEN QUANG – The folk singing of the San Diu ethnic group in the northern province of Tuyen Quang is fading with time, worry local elders.

The folk lyric singing, known as Soong Co, is rarely heard now, even in Ninh Lai Commune, Son Duong District, where the form was believed to have originated. Over 70 per cent of the population of Ninh Lai Commune are of the San Diu group but few young people can now sing the songs.

"I even don't know how to speak the San Diu language, let alone sing the traditional songs," say some teenagers in the area.

Do Van Huong, 66, is one of the rare remaining locals who still can, and he recalls the memories of his youth and falling in love with his wife, Hoang Thi Suu, during nights of singing Soong Co.

"Back then, men who couldn't sing Soong Co wouldn't have been able to find a wife," said Huong. "In springs, when farmers weren't so busy in the fields working, young people always joined singing festivals."

Teams of singers travelled around, stopping at every village and recruiting more members at each stop, he said.

"The lyrics are simple spoken language, yet they contain melodies inside," said Le Thi Long, 61, from Ninh Lai Commune. "People loved to sing Soong Co since, through the songs, they could speak out their feelings and hopes."

While young people sang the songs to find lovers, old people used them to teach the youth about the merits of the ancestors and good behaviour, Long said.

According to Nguyen Viet Thanh, director of the provincial Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism, teens from local ethnic groups no longer wear traditional clothes, speak ethnic languages, or have even grown up in homes of traditional design.

The customs of other ethnic groups in the province were also fading, Thanh said, including the Long Tong (Field Work) Festival of the Tay ethnic group, the Cap Sac (coming of age) ceremony and Tet Nhay (New Year's Dance) of the Dao group, the Nhay Lua (Fire Dance) of the Pa Then group, and the Sinh Ca songs of the Cao Lan group.

The province has begun a project to preserve these cultural values, with a budget of up to VND3.8 billion (US$1.9 million). The project includes research on the cultural values of seven ethnic groups in 45 villages in the districts of Na Hang, Son Duong, Chiem Hoa, Yen Son and Ham Yen.

From that research, the most endangered heritage would be prioritised for preservation efforts, with some local festivals to be reconstituted in conjunction with economic and tourism development efforts. – VNS

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Passing on folk dance skills

Move it: Dao dancers perform in a traditional festival. Dancing teachers complain that dance students should learn more about ethnic groups before learning their dances. — VNA/VNS Photo Phuong Hoa

HA NOI — Ethnic folk dance training needs improvements including shortened training time and better background music, said professional dancers at a recent conference on ethnic folk dancing. Artist Tran Duc Vien, a retired dancing teacher, proposed to shorten existing dance training courses at art institutes throughout the country.

"The folk dance training schedule is too long now, which has led to a waste of time and finances," Vien said. "Concerned agencies should publish folk dances of ethnic groups in more systematically designed course books to be officially used at art institutes throughout the country."

The background music for folk dances should also be revised to be professional enough for teaching and performing, he said.

Dance teacher Pham Thanh Tung, from the Dance Department of the Military Culture and Arts College, complained on the present way of teaching folk dances in art institutes.

"Dance teachers now just tend to guide students to imitate their gestures," he said. "Students themselves have not yet been made aware of nor developed any profound understanding of the ethnic groups' culture reflected in their dances.

"I think young dance teachers like me should be equipped with knowledge of ethnic groups and the folk dances we teach so that we can give students general knowledge about the groups before teaching them the dances of those groups."

Other participants in the conference agreed that folk dances were increasingly important in preserving traditional cultural values, but the training was beset with shortcomings. According to artist Ha The Dung, director of the HCM City Dance College, the biggest hindrance was the limited number of folk dance trainers.

"Furthermore, the teaching materials are also insufficient. There are only folk dances for 18 ethnic groups collected out of 54 groups throughout the country," Dung said.

Artist Nguyen Van Quang, director of the Vet Nam Dance College, mentioned the difficulty in recruiting students for the field.

"Today's youth prefer other types of arts," he said. "Some meeting the criteria on appearance and talent just take the entrance exams for fun and are not serious about studying even if they pass." — VNS

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Vietnam kicks off folk culture projects

The Vietnam Folk Arts Association announced 2,000 research projects on the folk culture of Vietnamese ethnic groups at a press briefing in Hanoi on Tuesday.

The projects were selected from almost 5,000 researches carried out over the past 40 years, according to President of the association To Ngoc Thanh.

Addressing the event, Phung Huu Phu, Permanent Deputy Director of the Commission for Information and Education under the Party Central Committee, said that with 54 ethnic groups, Vietnamese people enjoy a plentiful and diversified culture. Those projects fortified the cultural traditions of the nation, he said.

In 2008-2012, the association plans to publish 1,000 research projects covering five fields: knowledge and behavior to environment; agricultural production with relations between people and nature; customs and practices; religions; and the achievements of literature and arts.

By the end of 2009, 100 research projects were published and in 2010 another 200 others are expected to come to the public. Each published project has a summary in English at the back.

The association plans to set up a website featuring the research projects, to introduce the traditional and unique Vietnamese culture to online audience.

The publications will be presented to local and central libraries, as well as Vietnamese embassies, Vietnamese cultural centers abroad and some international organizations in Vietnam.

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