Plan to preserve UNESCO heritage launched in Hanoi

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism on Jan. 22 launched a
national action plan to preserve and develop the value of the Giong
festival, which has been recognised as an Intangible Cultural Heritage
of Humanity by the UNESCO.

The plan was announced at a ceremony held in Phu Dong commune, Gia Lam
district of Hanoi to receive the certificate of recognition of the
UNESCO title.

At the ceremony, UNESCO Chief Representative in
Hanoi Katherine Muller-Marin stressed that the Giong festival has been
deeply impressed in the life of residents in the Red river delta as a
part of their characteristics, passing from generations to generations.
The recognition of the festival as an intangible cultural heritage of
humanity is expected to accelerate humans’ creativeness and dialogues
between cultures.

The ceremony was held in an open air of a
northern countryside with an incense offering to Saint Giong at the
beginning and then, the performances of ceremonies of the festival.

UNESCO
officially honoured Vietnam’s Giong festival as an Intangible Cultural
Heritage of Humanity at a meeting of its Inter-Governmental Committee in
Nairobi, Kenya, on November 16, 2010.

The festival was Hanoi’s third heritage honour presented by the UNESCO in 2010.

The other sites include 82 steles engraved with names of doctorate
holders for centuries in the Van Mieu-Quoc Tu Giam, Vietnam’s first
university, which have been recognised as Documentary Heritage of the
Memory of the World programme. The central site of the Thang Long Royal
Citadel has won the title “World Cultural Heritage”.

The
Giong festival is held annually in several parts of northern Vietnam,
most typically in the Phu Dong and Soc Temples in Hanoi, to commemorate
Saint Giong, one of the immortal quartets in the Vietnamese legends.

Legend has it that under the sixth King Hung’s reign (around 500 BC)
Vietnam was threatened by the Kingdom of Yin, to the north of Vietnam.

A little boy, who was unable to crawl, roll over and say a single word
at the age of three, had surprisingly grown up to a giant man in just
several days after getting news on the foreign invasion. He used local
bushes of bamboo to defeat aggressors and flew into the sky with his
iron horse after the final victory.

In order to show their gratitude to the hero of Giong village, people proclaimed him Saint Giong.

The festival meets all qualifications for an intangible cultural
heritage of humanity as it has been conserved by the community as part
of the national cultural identity, handed down from generations to
generations, holds creativeness of humanity and represents aspiration
for prosperity by every family and peace for the nation and the world./.

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Experts praise Vietnamese folk values

Don ca tai tu (music of the talented) should be recognised as an
intangible heritage of the country to curb the impact of Western music's
influence on indigenous musical forms, according to international
scholars at a conference on preservation of the art form.

Speaking at the three-day event in HCM City , Professor Sheen
Dae-cheol of  the Republic of Korea  (RoK) said Don ca tai tu, which began 100 years
ago, holds an important position in Vietnam.

The
history of Don ca tai tu is similar to Gagok of the RoK and Nanyin
of China, both of which began as amateur music and developed into more
sophisticated forms.

Don ca tai tu, however, has retained its original characteristics.

Because it does not require a stage, it quickly became popular in every
corner of society and could be performed under a tree, in a house, on a
boat, or under the moonlight.

The Korean professor said
he was impressed with the musical instruments. Some of them have only
one, two or three strings, such as the monochord, two-chord fiddle and
the three-string fretless box spike lute.

"The feeling and
soul of the Vietnamese people are embedded in tai tu music. The music,
which is an invaluable heritage, applies the yin-yang theory of the
East," he said.

"The value of gender equality is also
mentioned in Don ca tai tu. Since it began, it has always been performed
with the participation of both men and women. Everyone considers Don ca
tai tu amateur music, but it is not amateur at all. It is noble amateur
music. It deserves to be considered as a world cultural heritage," he
added.

Dr Joe Peters of Singapore , who noted that Don
ca tai tu was important to the Vietnamese people's life, said that video
and audio clips on the art form could be found on the internet.

Prof Yamaguti Osamu of Taiwan 's Nanhua University said
improvisational music like Don ca tai tu appears in other countries,
including India and, especially, Africa .

The music is transmitted orally and has no printed musical notation.

More recordings of the music must be done so that documents can be
submitted to UNESCO and the art form can be approved and recognised as
an intangible cultural heritage of the world.

Gisa
Jaehnichen, a professor in the music department at University Putra
Malaysia , praised the charm of Don ca tai tu and the instruments used
in performance.

The music is traditionally played in informal venues, often in a close friend's home or in a neighbour's garden.

Its standard orchestra includes a dan tranh (16-string zither), a dan
kim (two-chord guitar), a dan co (two-chord fiddle), a ty ba
(pear-shaped, four-chord guitar), a doc huyen (monochord zither) and a
flute.

Professor Tran Van Khe, musician Nguyen Vinh Bao, who are
experts in Vietnamese traditional music, and other local artists said
they were highly impressed about the knowledge of the foreign experts
who spoke about Don ca tai tu at the conference.

Experts said that
performing the music on a big stage or during tourism festivals, which
has been done in recent years, was not true to its original nature./.

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Dak Lak hangs on to vanishing heritage

The Central Highlands province of Dak Lak is being stripped of its
cultural heritage as gongs, drums and many ancient hunting knives and
tools are used to feed the thriving trade in ethnic antiques, officials
warn.

Buon Trap town in Krong Ana district boasts an all-woman team playing
the Jo, a gong designed exclusively for women of the E De ethnic group.

"The team play on two ten-gong sets which are owned by a local family.
Six gongs were sold to antique collectors in recent years and two others
were broken," said Tran Viet Du, an official with the district's
Culture Office said.

"When the team play the Jo, we have to rent gongs from a nearby town for the performers," Du said.

"Buon Trap is one of many locations in the province where gongs have
been sold to traders that can never be replaced again," said Y Wai Bya,
director of Dac Lac's Culture, Sports and Tourism Department.

"That is due largely to the poverty of the local people. Many people do
not hesitate to sell antique gongs to collectors to get large sums of
money," he said.

Du and Bya are among many officials who have expressed growing alarm about the antique trade in Central Highlands provinces.

"Researchers specialising in the Central Highlands' culture and history
need to come up with long-term strategies for the preservation of
gongs, drums and other old items relating to ethnic culture," Bya said.

Bya admitted that the province still lacked policies to
preserve gongs and train officials to gain a profound understanding of
traditional music and the culture of ethnic people.

Bya said the provincial People's Committee recently approved a policy to assist gong owners.

"Each family that owns an antique gong will receive an annual stipend
of 500,000 VND (25 USD) from the province," he said, giving no
further details.

The committee is also working on a
project to build in each village a museum to display traditional musical
instruments and items used in the daily lives of the ethnic people.

"More festivals will be organised in Dak Lak's villages and districts
where ethnic people can perform gongs, drums and introduce their folk
music to outside audiences," Bya said.

The centuries-old
gong music is a precious cultural heritage of Vietnam's ethnic people.
They play the gong to commemorate a good harvest, during festivals, and
to mark occasions like the birth of children, weddings, and funerals.

The Central Highlands gong culture was recognised as a Masterpiece of
Oral and Intangible Cultural Heritage by UNESCO in 2006.

Cultural researcher Y Duong, grandson of Y Jut Nie K'Dam, author of the
first Vietnamese – E De Dictionary, said he had spent many years working
on a project to protect gongs and would submit it soon to the Dak Lak
People's Committee for consideration.

Apart from ancient
gongs and drums, K'pan long benches used by gong performers and tools
used by hunters of elephants and wild animals are much sought after by
antique traders.

Ama Pet, a well-known elephant hunter in
Buon Don town, said he was among few people who still kept the leather
ropes used in elephant hunting.

Pet caught and
domesticated 15 elephants using his rope which is more than 10m in
length. Elephant hunting is now banned in Dak Lak. He said he intends to
sell his rope to have money to spend for the family.

He
said he has priced the rope at 15 million VND (750 USD) including a
piece of buffalo leather used to cover the back of the elephant./.

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Giong festival wins UNESCO’s heritage title

UNESCO officially honoured Vietnam’s Giong festival as an Intangible
Cultural Heritage of Humanity at a meeting of its Inter-Governmental
Committee in Nairobi, Kenya, on November 16.

The Hanoi People’s
Committee reported that it is Hanoi’s third heritage honour presented by
the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation
(UNESCO) in 2010.

The other sites include 82 steles engraved
with names of doctorate holders for centuries in the Van Mieu-Quoc Tu
Giam, Vietnam’s first university, which have been recognised as
Documentary Heritage of the Memory of the World programme. The central
site of the Thang Long Royal Citadel has won the title “World Cultural
Heritage”.

The Giong festival is held annually in several parts
of northern Vietnam, most typically in the Phu Dong and Soc Temples in
Hanoi, to commemorate Saint Giong, one of the immortal quartets in the
Vietnamese legends.

Legend has it that under the sixth King
Hung’s reign (around 500 BC) Vietnam was threatened by the Kingdom of
Yin, to the north of Vietnam.

A little boy, who was unable to
crawl, roll over and say a single word at the age of three, had
surprisingly grown up to a giant man in just several days after getting
news on the foreign invasion. He used local bushes of bamboo to defeat
aggressors and flew into the sky with his iron horse after the final
victory.

In order to show their gratitude to the hero of Giong village, people proclaimed him Saint Giong.

The
festival meets all qualifications for an intangible cultural heritage
of humanity as it has been conserved by the community as part of the
national cultural identity, handed down from generations to generations,
holds creativeness of humanity and represents aspiration for prosperity
by every family and peace for the nation and the world.

The
Giong festival was among 46 candidates from 29 nations that UNESCO
recognised as intangible cultural heritage in 2010 after considering 113
dossiers submitted by 32 member nations./.

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