Joyful commencement of the Vietnamese 2018 Lunar New Year (Tết) Programme at Thăng Long Imperial Citadel

2018 – the Lunar New Year of the Dog is nearing. Tết, as it is popularly known in Vietnamese, is the time for family reunion when each of us look backward on the passing year and forward to a new year with renewed hope for happiness and good luck.

“Four sacred animals” dances in the new year festival.

In order to preserve and promote the national cultural values and keep memories of the traditional Tết festival, the Thăng Long – Hà Nội Heritage Conservation Centre worked with organizations and artisans to organize the Vietnamese Tết programme in celebration of the Party and the New Year 2018 at the Imperial Citadel of Thăng Long. The programme features many exhibitions and educational activities about the traditional cultural heritage and is scheduled to last from now to the middle of the First Lunar Month. The series of activities will start with a programme for the children, helping them to undersand and gain useful and interesting experience of the traditional Lunar New Year of the country.

Taking part in the Vietnamese Tết Programme at Thăng Long Imperial Citadel, which lasts from 22 January to 27 January 2018, children will be able to understand more about Tết of yore through documentary photos of the French Albert Kahn Museum and the engraved paintings made by Henri Oger with such popular images as Kitchen Gods ceremony, erection of the New Year’s Tree, firecrackers, ancestral worshipping, the making of glutionous rice cakes (bánh chưng), the arrangement of the “five fruits” votive tray, Tết banquets, floral decorations, peach blossom and kumquat, first house visit, lucky money, Tết wishes, folk paintings, new year’s travel, calligraphy and so on. They will also enjoy themselves to the full playing such folk games as crossing bamboo bridge, tug-of-war, see-saw, swinging, boomerangs, three-leg races, four sacred animals dance and appreciate the New Year’s folk paintings of Đông Hồ, Hàng Trống, and Kim Hoàng, as was depicted in the following verse lines by Hoàng Cầm:

Đông Hồ folk paintings feature fresh and bright depictions of hens and pigs.
The shell powder paper beams with the national colour

Many of these folk painting lines have faded away in the modern life and are in urgent need of safeguarding.

The inaugural ceremony saw the heritage site welcoming more than 400 students from Trần Quốc Toản Primary School in Hoàn Kiếm District of Hanoi who came to play and experience the traditional Tết festival.

The 2018 Vietnamese Tết Programme at Thăng Long Imperial Citadel attracted a huge turnout of schoolchildren.

During the Lunar New Year, there are also many other cultural activities to be held at Thăng Long Imperial Citadel such as the Kitchen God ceremony, the erection of New Year’s Tree, incense offering ceremony featuring various traditional rites and artistic performances including water puppetry, traditional martial arts to entertain new year’s visitors.

On this special occasion, the Centre introduces the Smartphone-based tour guide service application for visitors to Thăng Long Imperial Citadel. This is a convenient technological product that is expected to improve the quality of services provided to visitors and enhance the visibility of the heritage site. At the moment this application can be downloaded free of charge everywhere and at any time regardless of where the users are – on the site or in another country. The only condition is for their mobile phones to be able to log in service provision websites of Apple or Google (depending on whether the operating system is IOS or Android)

SPECIFIC TIMELINE OF EVENTS:

Exhibition, gallery and heritage education activities:

• Exhibition and gallery: from 22 January 2018 – 24 February 2018.
• Vietnamese Tết programme for children: From 22 January 2018 -27 January 2018.

Traditional cultural activities

• Kitchen God Ceremony, erection of New Year’s Tree (14h of 7 February 2018).
• Water puppet shows (From 18 February 2018 to 20 February 2018, three shows each day, respectively at: 10h00, 14h00 and 16h00).
• New Year’s Incense Offering Ceremony (24 February 2018).

Venue for these events: Thăng Long Imperial Citadel (19C Hoàng Diệu – Ba Đình – Hà Nội).
Landline phone: 024.3.7345427.

Thăng Long Imperial Citadel is closed on 14, 15, 16 February 2018. Visitors can still offer incense and jossticks.
The Site is open again from 17 February 2018.

Some photos of the inaugural ceremony:

New Year’s calligraphy art.

Exhibition of folk paintings.

Dance of four sacred animals.

87-year-old Mr. Phạm Văn Thưởng, the oldest member of the Đục Khê Village’s dance troupe.

85-year-old Mr. Phạm Văn Hưng (in white attire) enthusiastically taking part in the dance of four sacred animals.

Swinging as a folk game.

Making “bánh chưng” with our own hands, my friends.

Thăng Long – Hà Nội Heritage Conservation Centre