Khau Vai Love Market
In Sapa, an old town built by French in the early 19th century, you can take part in “Khau Vai love market”. It is held once a year at night on 27th March of Lunar calendar. There you will behold the couples of H’mong and Giay tribes who come together to flirt and find partners. Do not be shy, because “Khau Vai love market” is a very special festival that celebrates the culture of H’mong and Giay tribes. Furthermore, you are able to marry there if you find a partner who is from the H’mong or Giay tribe. All the people there are very kind and gentle. But, be careful, you may be lucky or unlucky because it is very difficult to distinguish whether your lover is beautiful or not in the very dark night of the festival.

Khau Vai, where is taken place the ‘love market’
Source: www.vietbao.vn

Buffalo Fighting Festival
Do Son – Hai Phong city holds the buffalo fighting festival annually. This event attracts thousands of people from around the country and many foreign tourists.

Source: http://www.daylife.com/photo/01iJfh8ctg4OY

The special festival is held for only one day in the spring. Do Son has twenty-four villages that send buffaloes to take part in the festival. Each pair of buffaloes will fight each other until one is eliminated when it runs away or is knocked-out. In turn, the winning buffaloes will fight each other and so on until the final match. The strongest buffalo is awarded a golden medal. Eventually, it would be butchered and its meat would be sold expensively to people who think that eating the meat will bring them good luck and vigourousness.

After the festival, the representative of the each village will allocate a group of people who have experience in buffalo training to go to the highland to look for some strong buffaloes with potential for the next festival.

Source: http://www.traveltovietnam.cc/Upload/services

Nobody knows the exact origin of buffalo fighting, just that this festival has lasted a long time and that it is one of the most gripping festivals in Vietnam.

.

Source: www.baodatviet.vn

“Ca Tru” is performed by at least three artists and they wear traditional costume. The singer must be woman who also plays an instrument called “phachs” that is made from bamboo wood. The singer beats the “phachs” to make a merry sound that mixes with other sounds made from the string instrument, “dan day” and from the drum.

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npgottBVrMI

Ca Tru singing was very common in the 19th and 20th centuries but it gained a bad reputation because the bars and restaurants with “Ca Tru” singing were also centres for opium and prostitution. Then, Ca Tru had gradually been avoided and it almost died.

Source: vietbao.vn

In the past few years, “Ca Tru” has been restored as a traditional music, celebrating its healthy character. Now, “Ca Tru” singing is heard in many places in North Vietnam, especially at the high standard hotels. There are many “Ca Tru” clubs.
Indeed, the slowness, smoothness and keeness of Ca Tru’s melody has inspired not only Vietnamese people, but also foreign tourists.

Are you interested by this genre of art? Please to visit the “Ca Tru Thang Long” club at: 40/32, Khương Trung, Thanh Xuân, Hà Nội or website: http://www.catruthanglong.com

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEgqkxJvaQw

According to Vietnamese folklore, formerly there was a woman called Ba Mu in Noi Due village who could create rain to end the drought. She protected crops and brought wealth and happiness for the people. Thus, people celebrate the Lim festival to worship and memorrialize her.

Source: http://www.vocw.edu.vn/content/m11319/latest/graphics3.jpg

Quan Ho singing is one of the main activities of the festival. The rule of this kind of singing is based on the retorts where the male group of singers , who are named “lien anh”, sing one set of words and then the female group, who are called “lien chi” respond with another set of lyrics.

When you wonder about Vietnamese art, you would have Dong Ho Painting in thought. Dong Ho Painting is the most famous kind of folk painting in Vietnam that have been originated in Dong Ho village, Thuan Thanh district, Bac Ninh province, northern Vietnamese about over 300 years of history. Dong Ho paintings vividly portrait the speciality in Vietnamese traditions or the simplicity of Vietnamese people, and the anxieties for a peaceful and prosperous living.

Dong Ho pictures are specially printed on ‘Dzo’ paper made of bark of a tree called Dzo. More skilfully, artists use many various types of tree leaves to refine the colours. This is really an interesting and clever method utilized by previous traditional artists since lone time ago to create the best way for panting and expressing the idea for Dong Ho folk paintings. Here are some instances for the using of this method: burnt bamboo leaves for black paint, cajuput leaves for green, copper rust for blue, pine resin for amber, crushed egg shells mixed with paste for white and so much more. Moreover, in order to protect the painting and the colours and to avoid them being dimmer after the following years of display, artists usually cover the painting by a layer of sticky rice. Those methods and elements to make Dong Ho paintings are basically close and familiar to us everyday but not everyone could think of them to create a real artistic and meaningful like Dong Ho paintings.

Making the Dong Ho paintings
Source: www.indochinaclassic.com/…/Dong%20Ho1.jpg

Hundreds of beautiful and famous Dong Ho paintings have been produced such as ‘Picking Coconuts’, the humorous ‘Teacher’ that represents the old educational practice, the ‘wedding Mouse’ or ‘Jealousy scene’ satirizing the polygamous system once upon a time, and so on. Although the details and ideas Dong Ho paintings feature are different but the representation of expecting flourish and prosperity is similar and hilariously shown.

In the past, people, especially in the countryside, used to buy Dong Ho pictures for decoration during Tet, Vietnamese traditional Lunar New Year. They believed that the pictures would bring them good luck and property. Whenever you go and you see Dong Ho pictures, you’d think of Vietnam and people’s creativity there.

Picking Coconuts
Source: www.flickr.com/photos/35892985@N02/3318453013/

Wedding Mouse
Source: www.flickr.com/photos/35892985@N02/3319286620/

Huong pagoda festival is one of the most popular and important events of Vietnamese people. It is annually held in springtime within a month from 6th January to 6th March lunar calendar. The distance is about 80 kilometers from Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam, you can visit Huong pagoda easily by land. Huong pagoda is really a complex heritage that includes the ancient pagodas, temples, and natural magnificent grottoes.

Source: www.en.skydoor.net/Download?mode=entry&id=279

The starting of Huong pagoda route is Duc Wharf on Yen stream, where has hundreds of dragon boats for waiting to pick visitors up. Alongside the Yen stream, your eyes will be feasted by the natural imposing landscape with the loom of Phoenix, Prostrating Elephant Mountains behind the slight fog.

Romantic Yen stream
Source: www.trekearth.com/gallery/photo337738.htm

The first essential place to visit is Trinh Temple. “Trinh” in Vietnamese represents that you must incense to present yourself to Mountain Deity as a procedure for entering whole complex Huong pagoda. Leaving Trinh temple, you continue the journey to romantic Yen stream. Sometimes you would see other boats which carry groups of singer who wear colorful traditional costumes and sing folk songs. They bring the uproarious atmosphere to the festival and visitors. At the end of Yen stream, the boats touch at Tro Wharf, you step up to Thien Tru pagoda which is known as the Chicken of Heaven. After visiting Thien Tru pagoda, Vien Cong tower, Tien Son grotto with the beautiful sceneries, you start a long climb on the mountain and spend about an hour on the winding path to reach Huong Tich grotto. You also see the groups of singer who are set up along the path to sing the folk tunes that portraits the beauty of Huong pagoda landscape.

Thinh Temple
Source: www.worldisround.com/photos/28/403/565_o.jpg

Huong Tich is the main and biggest grotto in Huong complex pagoda. It can contain thousands of people at the same time. There are many stalactites and stalagmites which make the strange and unique shapes. Some of them were named Gold and Silver trees, Money Pile and have been touch by visitors who have the conception that it would bring them wealth and flourish. Especially, there are two stalagmites which are similar to the head of a boy and girl, so people believe that rubbing the head would bring them their expected daughter or son.

Huong Tich Grotto
Source: www.panoramio.com/photos/original/20001410.jpg

He graduated at the Indochinese Fine Art College, which established by French in 1925 and was a unique art college in Indochina at that time, with the excellent grate. Most of his paintings present Vietnamese ladies with traditional dresses or famous sceneries of North Western Vietnam.

One of the most popular of his paintings is “Thieu nu ben hoa hue” which presents a Vietnamese delicate lady was sitting beside a tuberose vase. This painting has been seen as the most successful in the To Ngoc Van’s carrier and considered as a poverty of Vietnamese nation. But, according to To Ngoc Thanh (Van’s son) this painting was sold to oversea by a Vietnamese painting collector and no one knows where it is now.

Source: www.forums.chotnho.com

Mr Thanh said that he has inherited some other famous paintings from his father such as “The lady with lotus”, “Two ladies with a baby” and they have been carefully kept.

Although he was passed away, but To Ngoc Van’s name and his paintings have presented for a significant part of Vietnamese culture.

Dan Tranh

Source: www.maxreading.com/data/books_images/cd2fdfd5d4eb…

Dan Tranh is a Vietnamese traditional plucked 16 chord zither which has gained a massive popularity and become the most-played instrument throughout Vietnam. The Dan Tranh originated form the ancient capital city of Hue where women played it for royalty and it is said as the symbol of the city. Its whole wooden body is long, narrow and about 110 cm long with 16 steel strings that have varying widths. Moreover, the timbre is high, clear and it expresses jubilant and pure melodies. There are 16 bridges used for hanging the strings, tuning and creating various notes or sounds. To play the instrument well and professionally, artists usually wear finger-nail plectrums on thumbs, forefingers or middle fingers in order to pluck properly.

Source:www.maxreading.com/data/books_images

Dan Tranh has become one of the most spectacular images bringing the characteristic of Vietnam. Vietnamese people are very fond of using it and it is transmitted from generation to another over 7-8 hundred years, suitable with the aesthetics of Vietnamese culture and expressing the Vietnamese beautiful soul through the beautiful language. Whenever you go, if you hear the sound of Dan Tranh, that would remind you of Vietnam, a beautiful and abundant country.

Hue singing combined with Dan Nguyet is seen as the Royal music in Vietnam

Source: www.honque.org/…/CungDinhHue/CaHue/CaHue1.jpg

Dan Nguyet:

Dan Nguyet is a two-stringed Vietnamese traditional musical instrument. The Vietnamese Southerners refers Dan Nguyet to Dan Kim which means ‘moon lute’.

Source: www.idecaf.gov.vn

According to ancient carvings, the moon-shaped instrument appeared in Vietnam in the 11th century. The instrument’s use has varied from province to province, but in the south it’s been used to accompany Cai Luong opera. Usually is Dan Nguyet played my men and it has maintained a very important position in the musical traditions of the Kinh nation- the most populated nation in Vietnam. It is distinguished by its pure and loud sound. Thus, it is heard at solemn and animated ritual concerts. The side of Dan Nguyet is made of hard wood, about 6cm height. The bottom is covered with wood without sound hole. In the past, instrumentalist used his or her fingernails to play Nguyet. Nowadays, they play it with a plastic or tortoise-shell plectrum. In most of traditional stage orchestras, Dan Nguyet is always an essential instrument. If you have a chance to travel to Vietnam, you may wish not to miss any opportunity to see and enjoy Dan Nguyet sound.

Source: www.xuvn.com/…/fashion/AoDaiBlueDragon.jpg

If you have an opportunity to visit Vietnam, you will be inspired not only by its simplicity but also by the supple and lithe shape of Ao Dai, its most popular traditional dress for women. It delicately stands out the graceful body of women.

According to the Vietnamese traditional costume book, from 17th century, Ao Dai was being creatively improved from long-standing tunic named ‘tu than’ and it has become the symbol of Vietnamese women. Ao Dai are also used for male but it is not common.

Basically, Ao Dai are separated into two types that depend on the colors. The white-colored Ao Dai is usually used by young girls, or unmarried females, especially schoolgirls who are seen as a pure and innocent symbol. Wearing the white-colored Ao Dai is compulsory for schoolgirls in most of Vietnamese high schools. The second type is often used by married women that are very colorful and usually decorated by glittery sequins.

Source: www.thuytinh9999.multiply.com/journal/item/409

Nowadays, Ao Dai are still widely worn by Vietnamese women as the crucial costume that represents the Vietnamese imagery in almost important competitions in the world such as Miss World or Miss Universe. It is highly commented by global fashion designers.

Source: www.letsgoeverywhere.files.wordpress.com/2006/11/…

The leaders of the United States, Russia and China wore the Vietnamese tradictional costume in the APEC convention held at Vietnam in 2006.

The tradictional costume of Dao tribe in North Vietnam

“Tu Than” dress

Vietnamese tradictional costumes have been described on the gramas

H’mong tribe women

Tay Phuong pagoda:

Source: www.vietnamtourism.com/v_pages/tourprogram/im…

Tay Phuong pagoda is located at Yen village, Thach That district, Ha Noi capital and is one of the most long-standing and characteristic pagodas in Vietnam. Tay Phuong pagoda was built in the end of 6th century by the skillful Vietnamese carpenters with a thousand of ingeniously sculptural details.
The construction of Tay Phuong pagoda is portrayed by www.panoramio.com: “The central construction has a directing role and is consequently raised higher than the others. It symbolizes Heaven. The construction at the rear plays the role of a foundation: it symbolizes the earth. The construction closest to the world of man stands in front. The whole structure is the symbol of Thai Cuc (the Prime Principle, from which the whole world derives). The double tier of the roof symbolizes the double principle, Luong Nghi, yin and yang. The slopes, the roof on the four sides symbolize the four elements of heaven, Tu Tuong; the sun, moon, stars and deities, while the slopes on the eight sides stand for the Eight Signs of the Sacred Octagon (Bat Quai)”.

A special statue in Tay Phuong pagoda

Source: http://www.virtourist.com/asia/vietnam/pagodas/999.htm

Annually, Tay Phuong pagoda is a place for holding an amazing festival with many traditional games, especially the “expiation” ceremony which attracts a thousand of people who come to pray for quietude and serenity.