Celebrating Mid-Autumn Festival at Thăng Long Imperial Citadel under the theme “Festive Drums of Autumn Moon”

As an annual key event, the celebration of Mid-Autumn Festival at Thăng Long Imperial Citadel attracts a large number of children who await it with a lot of excitement.

The programme this year, which is titled “Festive Drums of Autumn Moon”, aims to restore and recreate the vivid and joyful images and sounds of the traditional Mid-Autumn Festival. Especially noteworthy are the images of the drums of all shapes, sizes and colours which are arranged and displayed to remind visitors of the festive ambience in the countryside of Vietnam.

In the religious and folk activities of Vietnam, the familiar sound of the drum, now high-pitched now low-pitched, has become indispensable. On the occasion of Mid-Autumn, people together indulged themselves in moon-gazing, merrymaking, lantern parade and partying amidst the drumbeat of the lion dances as well as the singing of trống quân as a unique form of repartee. This special type of duets in the northern provinces of Vietnam will be performed by artisans at Thăng Long Imperial Citadel.

Coming to the programme at Thăng Long Imperial Citadel, children will have a chance to take part in useful and exciting activities such as watching lion dances, listening to trống quân songs, taking check-in photos outdoors in the open space beautifully decorated with drums and star lanterns, experiencing the making of mooncakes, making some types of traditional toys such as mâché paper mask  painting, making kites, painting statuettes, painting sketches, matching pictures, kneading dough figurines. They will also take part in traditional games such as seesaw, slides, triangular hill, bamboo bridge among others.

The programme is to last three days, from 6 September 2019 8 September 2019.

Specific time for performances is as follows:

6 September 2019:

• Lion dance at 9h30 and 10h30.
• trống quân songs: 8h30 and 10h30.

7 and 8 September 2019:

• Lion dance at 9h30 and 10h30.
• trống quân songs: 8h30 and 10h30.

The programme for schools alone will last until 13 September 2019 and feature such useful activities as:

• Sightseeing and learning: “Festive Drums of Autumn Moon” Exhibition; Education theme “Recounting the tales of sage kings and talented officials through the practices of Mid-Autumn Festival in the Thăng Long Imperial Citadel of yore”
• Experiential & Interactive activities: Making mooncakes.
• Mid-Autumn Market: Buying star lanterns, rabbit lantern, spin lantern, mâché paper masks, metal vessels, drumming rabbits, handheld drums, frog drums, dough figurines, etc.
• Folk games: Kite flight, tug-of-war, sack race, skipping rope, swing and slides, triangular hill climb, etc.

Besides, schools that wish to take part in water puppetry, meeting and talking to Historian Lê Văn Lan, please register in advance so that the organizers can arrange the schedule

Please contact: 024.3.7345427. Hotline: 0913.012.021.

Thăng Long – Hà Nội Heritage Conservation Centre