Vice Secretary of the HCM City Party Committee Nguyen Thi Le presents to the organisation of Hoa people at the event (Photo: VNA). HCM City (VNA) – The customs of the Hoa ethnic groupin Ho Chi Minh City’s District 5 in celebrating the annual Nguyen Tieu festival(spring lantern festival) have been recognised as a national intangible heritage.
The festival is celebrated on the fifteenth day of the firstmonth in the lunisolar calendar to mark the final day of the traditionalChinese New Year celebrations.
The Hoa group (Vietnamese of Chinese origin) in Ho Chi MinhCity number around 500,000. They live mainly in Cho Lon (District 5, District6, District 10 and District 11), which is seen as a local Chinatown.
To receive the recognition, the district People’s Committee,on July 5, organised a special programme that re-enacted part of the festival,which have been preserved by the local group over the past three decades. Theevent also included musical and art performances, a film screening, a parade andan exhibition on lanterns and ink wash painting.
At the event, the authorities hounoured three Hoa artisans,namely Truong Han Minh, Chu Loi and Luu Kiem Xuong, who have made significantcontribution to the festival.
Also on the occasion, an exhibition was opened at thedistrict’s cultural centre at No 131 Trieu Quang Phuc road in Ward 11. It isintroducing the history of the festival and 6,000 editions of a book on the NguyenTieu festival and related customs of the Hoa people in District 5.
According to Permanent Vice Chairman of the HCM CityPeople’s Committee Le Thanh Liem, Hoa people’s organisations have long practisedand passed on their traditional values in harmonisation with Vietnamesecultural identities./.
VNA
