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An art performance at the festival |
The 4th international festival of Vietnamese traditional martial arts was successfully held in Binh Dinh, contributing to the preservation and development of Vietnamese martial arts. However, there are still some concerns about the event.
The festival proved its attraction even as the opening ceremony started. Thanks to the wide propagation, scores of people filled in the stadium to enjoy splendid art programs. Other activities also attracted a large number of visitors to come to enjoy.
Performance and exchance activities partly contributed to the success of the festival. They took place not only at 6 well known martial arts clubs but cultural centers and relics in different localities. The activities helped martial arts practitioners and local people to interact with each other. A local woman hoped she would be able to see more performances at the following festivals.
At the previous festival, Ho Sung martial arts club missed a chance to join such a program as it was difficult to enter the club due to bad conditions of the road. This year saw a better road; thus, many domestic and foreign participants were able to come to the club to perform and exchange martial arts skills.
“This is the first time we (the club) had a chance to welcome many martial arts teams. This encouraged the development of traditional martial arts at localities,” martial arts Master Ho Sung said.
Another highlight contributing to the success of the event is 8 programs taking place in many localities to serve other people. These included Night for Han Mac Tu-Xuan Dieu’s poems, bai choi folk-song program, and an exhibition on weaponry and photos related to martial arts festivals .
A little bit of concern
This year’s festival still lacked outstanding programs. Most activities are similar to each other while most expenses were poured into the opening ceremony. The martial arts pageant has no new features; moreover, the organizing board had no measure to highlight the beauty of the martial arts in a contest of international magnitude.
Most foreign teams only joined a few of performance activities even though they had to travel thousands of kilometers to come to Binh Dinh. Foreign martial arts delegation couldn’t participated in some programs as expected.
The exhibition of craft villages’ products and local cuisine became weakly attracted as there were not many unique food and the arrangement was not suitable.
Another concern is working conditions for journalists. Hundreds of reporters nationwide came to report the event, but there were no specific regulation on venues for journalists to work. Some reporters, thus, faced difficulties while working, particularly in taking photos.
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