First Red River festival in Yen Bai from March 29th-31st

From March 29th to 31st, 2012, Yen Bai Department of Culture, Sport and Tourism will be hosting the first Red River festival in Dong Cuong commune, Yen Bai province. The festival, which aims to appreciate diverse cultural values of the regions along Red River, is part of the tourism program “Returning to the roots of Vietnamese people”, jointly held by three northern mountainous provinces Lao Cai, Yen Bai and Phu Tho.

As planned, the four-part opening ceremony is to last for 45 minutes and feature professional arts performances dedicated to Red River's most outstanding values.

Cap Sac - traditional maturity ritual of Yao ethnic people

Taking place within only two days, the festival boasts a number of cultural, sports and arts activities such as local food fair, countryside market, ethnic costume show, Cheo (Vietnam’s northern-style opera) performance and movie screening. Vietnamese traditional festivals like Cap Sac ritual of Yao ethnic people, boat racing festival, or buffalo fighting festival since Tran dynasty will be also featured by local people on this occasion.

As the largest river system in the north of Vietnam, Red River plays an important role in the area’s agricultural production, as well as  in the establishment of Red River civilization, which is one of the main roots of Vietnamese culture today. The first Red River festival is expected to show tourists, especially foreign ones a piece of North Vietnam’s culture, and inspire them to discover the huge left.