Vietnamese New Year
The more popular name for the Vietnamese New Year is Tet, where as the formal name is Nguyen-dan. Tet is a very inportant festival because it provides one of the few breaks in the agricultural year, as it falls between the harvesting of the crops and the sowing of the new crops.
Tet falls on a [...]
Lim festival
The Lim festival, opening on January 13th (lunar year), is the leading Quan Ho song festival as many famous Quan Ho Song villages in the area take part in it.
Speaking of Lim festival is dealing with Love Duets which annual happens from 13th to 15th of 1 lunar month at Noi Due, Tien Son, Bac [...]
Ao Dai
A lasting impression for any visitor to Vietnam is the beauty of Vietnamese women dressed in their Ao Dais. These long flowing dresses worn over loose-fitting trousers are considered to be the national dress of Vietnamese women.
Early versions of the Ao Dai date back to 1744, when men and women to wear a trouser and [...]
Tet Doan Ngo
This is the middle year festival for the prevention of disease and ward off evil spirits (the day of changing weather from spring to summer, this is the time easy to get pathogen). On the day of killing insects, every one has to get up early, eat fermented sticky and fruits. The worshipping is held [...]
Four-flapped Dress (Ao Tu Than)
Before the ao dai was considered our traditional costume, we had the ao tu than, which translates as the four-flapped dress.
The dress is long-sleeved and usually dark brown, with two front and two back flaps, or strips of fabric. The two back flaps are sewn together with a seam running down the spine, called the [...]
Ao Yem
It is veried in size and color. It is a hand-made product. Traditionerlly, a Vietnamese girl sould make her own Yem when she reached the age of puberty, with the assistance of her mother.
Yem played an important role in the spiritual life of rural Vietnam. The image of Yem served as a sysbol of unspoken [...]
Language and Scripts
Among the 54 Vietnamese ethnic groups some have had their own scripts for a long time and some have not preserved their ancient scripts. As a matter of fact, some ethnic groups consisting of some hundreds of individuals living in remote areas have their own languages.
More than 80% of the population speaks Vietnamese or Kinh/Viet, [...]
Classical Han Chinese (chu Hán)
During the 1,000 years of Chinese rule over what is now northern Viet Nam, che Hán (classical Han Chinese, also known as che nho) became firmly established as the language of the Vietnamese royal court and would remain so until as late as 1918 when the ancient system of mandarin examinations was finally abolished.
The oldest [...]
Trieu Khuc Village Festival
Located in a suburban area of Hanoi, Trieu Khuc village is the site of a former 4,000-year old ceramics production centre.
Trieu Khuc village is nearly ten kilometres far from Ha Noi, belonging to Tan Trieu community, Thanh Tri district. This village is famous for its pretty hats with fringed chinstrap winning praise in folk songs [...]
The Dao Tien women’s costume
The dao Tien are mainly settled in a large area spreading from southern Ha Giang and Cao Bang through Tuyen Quang and Bac Giang.
On the base of brocade material with indigo and other colourful hues, the Dao Tien women have made unique patterned costumes that highlight their simple beauty.
Dao Tien women’s charming radiant attire is [...]
Modern literature since 1975
With national integrity finally secured in 1975, it was not long before the literary community began to explore in their work themes which had largely been set aside during the long struggle for self determination.
This trend received a boost with the implementation of ??i m?i (’Renovation’) in 1986, which afforded Vietnamese writers a measure of [...]
Architecture of Hoi An
A number of Hoi An’s wooden buildings date from the first half of the 19th century or earlier. Imaginative visitors feel thai they have been transported back 3 couple of centuries to s time when the wharf was crowded with sailing ships, the streets teemed with porters transporting goods to and from warehouses, and traders [...]
Open house
Home, guesthouse, men’s club, training centre, committee room and religious space - there are many uses for the soaring Bahnar communal house being built at the Vietnam Museum of Ethnology in Hanoi Dr. Claire Sutherland reports.
Opened in June of this year, the Bahnar communal house tells a story of international co-operation to rescue a traditional [...]
Vietnamese Architecture
Vietnamese architecture arises from the Kings Hung dynasty.
Before the 10th century, villages and hamlets appeared in this period according to several tales of Linh Nam. The ancient Vietnamese used wood to build houses to protect themselves from tigers and wolves. Two kinds of houses were depicted on the bronze drums; one in the shape of [...]
Ruong house
Hue has long been Vietnam’s centre of wooden architecture and many of the buildings here, royal palaces included, are Ruong style.
A typical Ruong house is noble vet cosy, hinting of the imperial finesse that once dominated this city. Each one is made up of compartments (which are separated by rows of columns) and side-wings (which [...]
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