Day: February 8, 2024

Hanoi: The Huong Pagoda Festival, the longest of its kind in Vietnam, is set to open in Huong Son commune, Hanoi’s outlying district of My Duc, on February 11 (the second day of the lunar new year) and last until May 1.

Speaking at a recent meeting on the festival organisation, Vice Chairman of the My Duc district People’s Committee Dang Van Canh who is also head of the festival organising board, affirmed preparations for the festival have completed.

This year, e-tickets will be used instead of paper ones as a measure to curb congestion and overcrowding in the first days of the festival.

The Huong Son relic site management board has improved the quality of boat management, along with locating restaurants and regulating traffic flows.

About 3,800 – 4,500 boats are qualified to provide service at this year’s festival. Moreover, 110 electrical cars will be available on three routes, namely Hoi Xa bus station – Yen Vy ferry station, Duc Khe bus station – Dong Cu station, and Road No1 bus station – Tuyet Son p
agoda ferry station.

Going to Huong Pagoda is a spiritual journey to the Buddhist Land – where the Goddess of Mercy leads a religious life.

Visitors have sightseeing trips to pagodas, temples and caves which are the main attractions at the Huong pagoda festival, and join ceremonies to ask for favours from Lord Buddha.

Built in the late 17th century, the Huong Pagoda Complex has a large number of pagodas, temples, and caverns filled with marvelous stalactites and stalagmites.

The Huong Tich cavern has the autograph of Lord Trinh Sam in 1770, describing the cavern as the most beautiful cave in the country.

It was recognised as a special national relic site in 2018./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

New York: As the Lunar New Year (Tet) is just around the corner, the Permanent Mission of Vietnam to the United Nations in New York held an event on February 7 to introduce traditional Tet dishes of Vietnam and celebrate the recognition of the Lunar New Year as a UN floating holiday.

The banquet was attended by a number of diplomats in New York, including ambassadors and chargés d’affaires of all missions of the member and observer countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the Vietnamese National Assembly delegation attending a joint Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) – UN hearing, and the ASEAN Chair’s special envoy Myanmar.

Highlighting the importance of Tet in the traditional culture of Vietnam and many Asian countries, Ambassador Dang Hoang Giang, Permanent Representative of Vietnam to the UN, expressed his hope that in the Year of the Dragon 2024, member states of the UN, especially the ASEAN Committee in New York, will continue strengthening cooperation and solidarity and jointly s
eek solutions to global challenges, thus contributing a world of peace, stability, and sustainable development.

At the event, the ambassador, his spouse, and staff members of the Vietnamese mission prepared and offered the country’s traditional and typical Tet dishes to the guests.

On December 22, 2023, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution recognising the Lunar New Year as a UN floating holiday. The resolution says this is a holiday in many member states and also encourages UN agencies not to hold meetings on the first day of the Lunar New Year.

The recognition came as a result of the campaigning coordination at the UN. Vietnam was one of the 12 countries submitting the joint proposal on this regard to UN leaders in August 2023 and also actively campaigned for the recognition./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

Hanoi: During the Lunar New Year (Tet) festival, each ethnic group in Vietnam has its own culinary specialties that reflect the culture of their people and are used as offerings to worship their ancestors.

Most Kinh (Vietnamese ethnic majority) people start preparations a month before the festival.

Many people usually cook nine dishes: banh chung (square sticky rice cake), dua hanh (pickled onions), gio nac (boiled lean pork sausage) and gio thu (boiled pork head sausage), thit dong (frozen meat), nem ran (spring rolls), canh mang (bamboo shoot soup), canh bong tha (dried pig skin soup), boiled chicken, and che kho (sweet green bean paste).

These carefully cooked traditional dishes are put on the home altar to worship their ancestors during Tet festival.

Of all the dishes, banh chung is the soul of Tet, reflecting the quintessence of heaven and earth through the skilled hands of humans. To make the cake, the most fragrant and fibrous sticky rice are chosen and the cakes often have pork, green beans, dried
onions and pepper in the centre.

The cakes are often eaten with pickled onion because its sour and light peppery flavour helps digestion. Meanwhile, gio nac and gio thu have remained on the offering food tray at Tet from the past to the present.

Nem (spring rolls) is a popular dish in the north that always has a place on a Tet food tray because it is so flavourful and healthy. It is made out of minced pork, carrots, wood ear fungus, green-bean sprouts, bean glass noodles and other ingredients. The fried rolls are then dipped into a bowl of sauce of mixed fish sauce, sugar, lemon or vinegar, chili and minced garlic.

The Tet food tray of northerners never lacks a big bowl of canh mang kho (dried bamboo shoot soup).

Ethnic groups, such as the Mong, Thai, Muong, Tay, Nung, Dao, and Co Tu, have their own New Year dishes.

For Mong people, their Tet tray should include dishes such as pork, wine, round cakes made from glutinous rice and maize cakes.

Fried fish is the specific dish of the Thai. They believe the
stream deity will protect them from danger.

The Nung ethnic people often make banh khao from dried glutinous rice powder, minced pork fat and sugar to worship their ancestors. The elderly said the sweet fat in the cake would prevent unlucky happenings in the New Year.

Meanwhile, the Co Tu in Tay Nguyen (the Central Highlands) make their own wine known as ruou Ta Vat and ruou can to welcome Tet. All visitors at New Year are invited to enjoy these wines.

Each Dao household has its own thit lon chua (sour pork), locally known as o sui, in New Year holidays. Ingredients include pork, salt, and cool rice. The dish should be eaten with la lot (wild lolot leaves) and la prang lau (a kind of wild leaf), and dipped in a bowl of mixed lemon and chili.

Tay people welcome Lunar New Year with a roast piglet. They often choose local piglets with small bones, firm and lean meat weighing from 20kg to 30kg. People often put mac mat (a kind of wild leaf and fruit) mixed with spices in the pig’s belly and cover the skin wit
h honey. They then roast it on charcoal for three hours until well done. The food is dipped in a sweet and fragrant sauce gotten from the pig’s belly./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency