Chol Chnam Thmay, the Khmer ethnic community’s traditional New Year festival, was re-enacted on April 15 at the Vietnamese Ethnic Groups Culture-Tourism Village in Dong Mo, Son Tay, Hanoi.
The event kicked off cultural and arts activities to mark Viet Nam Ethnic Groups Cultural Day (April 19) which are scheduled to be held from April 15-20.
The re-enactment of the festival featured a wide variety of traditional rituals, including bathing Buddha statues, praying for a peaceful and happy new year at the main temple, offering food to Buddhist monks and visitors and an arts exchange at the Khmer Buddhist temple complex of the village.
Also today, the traditional food specialities of the ethnic groups from all regions of Viet Nam were introduced to visitors.
Chol Chnam Thmay is the traditional New Year festival of the Khmer communities, not only in Viet Nam, but also in some other countries including Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Myanmar and Sri Lanka. It falls on the third lunar month and lasts for three days.
In addition to traditional rituals, numerous entertainment activities are held during the Khmer people’s festival such as releasing sky lanterns, kindling a fire gyroscope and the elderly people telling tales and myths to their children and grandchildren.
This year’s Viet Nam Ethnic Groups Cultural Day, themed ‘The cultural identity of Viet Nam’, is an annual event significantly contributing to the preservation of the nation’s traditional cultural values, as well as introducing Vietnamese Ethnic Groups Culture Tourism Village and promoting the image of Viet Nam’s land and people to the world.