From the 3rd to 5th May, 2007 the ninth Binh Dinh province mountainous ethnic groups’sport-culture festival takes place at An Son commune – Hoai An district. Binh Dinh newspapers reporter interviewed Mr.Duong Minh Chau, vice-chairman of Culture-Information Department and head of the organization board about new features of this year’s festival.
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This year’s festival will have a raft race. Photo: Raft race in Hoai An district’s Sport-Culture Festival (Hoai Thu)
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+ During the three-day’s festival with the participation of five mountainous districts, which activities will be included?
In this festival there will be a variety of ebullient activities, characterizing ethnic groups’ cultural characters. Culturally, there will be competitions on beautiful villages, performance, folk festival, mountainous beauty, brocade knitting, and “cap dah” weaving. Also, community cultural activities, disguise festival, folk games will be held. Sporting events will include traditional tournaments such as crossbow shooting (male), volleyball (male), stick pushing (male, female), sloping hill running (male, female), javelin-throwing (male), etc. The organization board increased the number of participants up to 80 compared with 60 as previously plan to help districts to participate well.
+ To make the the festival more attractive, will there be any new activites?
Alongside the improvement of the quality of activities, the organization board will also hold some new activities, closely connecting with ethnic groups’ spiritual life. In this year’s festival, besides competitions on singing, dancing, and on-stage folk festival, at each camp we will hold the contest of community cultural activities in which there will be “cong chieng” (Gongs) performance, the introduction of culinary culture, behavioral culture, hơamon singing, khan telling and lullaby (extracted). This will be a chance to show ethnic groups’ special forms of traditional art which weren’t performed at previous festivals. Also, we will hold disguise festival to vividly color the whole festival at the end. The team performances in the disguise festival will be associated with each ethnic group’s festival. Bahnar people in Hoai An district, for example, have the Dyông Dtruơ festival while Bahnar people in Vinh Thanh have the Brăm one.
Binh Dinh province mountainous ethnic groups’ sport-culture festival is held every two years with the aim of inheriting and developing the ethnic groups’ traditional values in Binh Dinh province; simultaneously, it creates a wholesome cultural environment, partially conserving ethnic groups’ traditional art-culture values. |
Especially, in the sporting events, there will be a raft race on the nearby Van Hoi irrigational lake. Raft race is quite “strange” with mountainous ethnic groups, but all districts ardently registered. 5-member-teams of each district ( Hoai An district has two) will join a 400-meter-race. All technical conditions for the race safety has been carefully prepared, so this race will be expected to be very interesting, bringing much enthusiasm for the festival.
+ To ensure the success of the festival, how has the preparation been carried out?
In 2006 Binh Dinh province information-culture department and sport department had held a meeting with Hoai An district People’s Committee to prepare for the festival. After coordinating with functional bodies, the preparation has been ready so far. We also sent official documents to Binh Dinh province Police Department, Health Department, and Electricity Department to ensure the public order, health security and power supply respectively. I believe that with such a careful preparation, the festival will be successful, showing ethnic groups’ distinctive cultural characters, bringing pleasure with safety and economy
+ Thank you very much!
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Reported by Hoai Thu
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Translated by Hong Quang | 
