A Vietnamese Lunar New Year (Tet) festival is scheduled to take place in the Japanese city of Amagasaki on February 3-4, ahead of the Lunar New Year’s Eve. The festival will feature art performances, fashion shows, folk games, trade promotion, and cultural activities, according to VOV.
The festival is part of the celebrations for Tet, which is the biggest annual event for Vietnamese people around the world. The program is organized by the Japan-Vietnam Trade Association with the sponsorship of Amagasaki City and the Vietnamese Consulate General in Osaka.
This year, the festival will also have the participation of the Vietnamese Association in Kansai, the Vietnamese Association in Kobe, the Reiwa-International Business Innovation Association, the Japan-Vietnam Support Association, and the Kansai Vietnam-Japan Cultural and Sports Exchange Association.
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| Calligraphy writing will be performed at the program “Homeland Spring – Vietnamese Tet Amagasaki 2024”. |
The highlights of the festival include a Vietnam-Japan Ao Dai beauty pageant and a Vietnamese fashion show. The beauty pageant aims to find outstanding faces to represent Vietnam in cultural promotion and trade exchanges in Japan. The fashion show will showcase Ao Dai (traditional long dress) and other national costumes on an outdoor stage.
Additionally, there will be numerous booths to introduce Vietnamese and Japanese dishes, high-quality products, and handicrafts from both countries. The festival will also feature Vietnamese folk games such as Nem con (throwing a sacred ball through a ring) and nhay sap (dance between bamboo poles).
Vietnamese artists, models, actors, and representatives from the Vietnamese community will also put on an art program. Pham Thi Thu Huyen, president of the Japan-Vietnam Trade Association and head of the organizing committee, aims to create the largest Tet event for the Vietnamese community in Japan and build it into an annual, large-scale event to promote Vietnamese culture to the Japanese people. The festival also aims to enhance exchanges and promote cultural and commercial development cooperation between Vietnam and Japan.
Furthermore, the annual “Xuân Quê Hương” (Homeland Spring) event, which is the biggest cultural event for overseas Vietnamese (OVs) as part of the Lunar New Year festival, will take place in Ho Chi Minh City on February 1-2. The event will include ancestral incense offering at the National Historical and Cultural Park, tours of major cultural and historical landmarks, and activities to connect Vietnamese expats and local people. State President Vo Van Thuong and his wife will host several events, including paying tribute to President Ho Chi Minh, releasing carps for the Land Genie, and a Kitchen Gods worshipping ritual.
The “Xuân Quê Hương” event, initiated in 2008 by the Foreign Ministry and competent agencies, has attracted the participation of many OVs from around the world. With approximately 5.3 million Vietnamese people living and working in over 130 countries and territories worldwide, OVs play a crucial role in maintaining and promoting the national great solidarity bloc.
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