This is our first time in Chiang Mai, and also our first time living together with foreign friends. This is a good chance for us to contact and get more knowledge about international cultures, languages, the way of working and also practicing the  community activities. Hence, in order to make a good impression on our foreign  friends in the BABSEACLE, our ambition to bring something from  Vietnamese culture to them prodded us into organizing  VIETNAMESE EVENING, a presentation evening about the culture, people and beautiful sites of our country. Vietnam has a vast culture with various traditional things, so we had to  choose just a little on it for this event: Traditional Long Dress,  Traditional folk songs and Songs about Hanoi, some Vietnamese  handmade productions and Mixed tropical fruits.

We were surprised by the big audience, they listened to us and we could see a lot of feelings in their eyes which almost seemed to speak during each presentation.   We started our evening with a sweet and gentle presentation, “Story about the Vietnamese Traditional Long Dress”. Now everyone in BABSEACLE knows that the most popular Vietnamese traditional garments is the “Ao Dai” (Long dress), worn often for special occasions such as wedding or festivals; the white long dress is the required uniform for girls in many high schools across Vietnam. The Long dress was once worn by both genders but today it is worn mainly by females, except for certain important traditional culture related occasions where some men do wear it.  The audience could see different styles of Long dress of three regions of Vietnam, and also in BABSEACLE’s house. To admire the Vietnamese traditional long dress fit on our foreign friends was moving and made us really happy.

We quickly found the love and the passion of our audience during the second presentation, “Vietnamese Traditional folk songs”. Vietnamese folk songs are composed by one person and spread among the common people, every region in Vietnam has its own rhythm, style and character.  After listening to the different folk songs of the three regions, Marie said that she liked the HUE chanty – a middle folk song; some friends wanted to keep the other songs on their laptop… It was really difficult to express our emotion when we finished the second presentation, because the music and the lullaby still played inside us.

We quickly found the love and the passion of our audience during the second presentation, “Vietnamese Traditional folk songs”. Vietnamese folk songs are composed by one person and spread among the common people, every region in Vietnam has its own rhythm, style and character.  After listening to the different folk songs of the three regions, Marie said that she liked the HUE chanty – a middle folk song; some friends wanted to keep the other songs on their laptop… It was really difficult to express our emotion when we finished the second presentation, because the music and the lullaby still played inside us.

The third Presentation – Songs about Hanoi: as you know, Hanoi is the capital of Vietnam, famous for a lot of things such as its traditional food, green rice, flowers, beautiful sites, people, and its passion. We chose songs from Hanoi for our presentation because every time we listen to these songs, we feel how Hanoi is, how Hanoians are. In addition, these songs are always charming, soft and distinct, Vietnam was the endless source of inspiration for the composer of these songs.

Songs about Hanoi encouraged a fighting spirit among Hanoians during the war. The famous songs “Hanoi people” of Nguyen Dinh Thi (1945) and “Hanoi, the hope and the belief” of Phan Nhan (1954) talked about the Hanoians who fought “war of resistance” against the French colonialists who lived in the battle with own courage, they fought for their independence. “Remember to Hanoi” was composed during the peace, after the war. The song expressed Hanoi’s charming sites, particular culture, ancient street…, which all attract the foreign tourist’s intention. After listening to these songs and watching the slide’s images, our audience said that: “We want to go to Hanoi now”! That made us so happy. Our evening closed with friendship and love. This evening was the most important event for us last week because we could show our foreign friends in BABSEACLE how beautiful and special Vietnam is!