The highlight of this year’s festival is the time of the event falls on the three-day holiday of September 2nd, luring a great number of onlookers and tourists packed both sides of some main streets of Tran Phu – Nguyen Hue – Dinh Tien Hoang - Ly Thuong Kiet - Trung Trac - Trung nhi - Nguyen Van Cu - Ngo Si Lien – Ngu Ong - Tran Hung Dao - Tran Quoc Toan - Nguyen Thi Minh Khai, etc to await for the procession. Visitors could take part in a carnival, lion and dragon dances, and enjoy folk music.
In this year’s parade, there were the performance attendance of 4 club-houses, namely: Hai Nam (Hainan), Phuc Kien (Fujian), Quang Dong (Guangdong), Trieu Chau (Chaozhou) and Quan Mieu delegation. Each club-house has from 70 to 170 people masquerading as fictional characters, such as: Master Duong Tang and his disciples, God of Fortune – Prosperity – Longevity, god of wealth, mandarin’s son and imperial maid, etc.
With the engagement of more than 700 walk-on parts and in fancy dresses, parade participants and demonstrators walked and performed numerous dance shows at the same time. Remarkably, the 150-meter-long dragon dance, performed by over 150 dancers, was really an attractive and breathtaking show to behold. The procession traveled more than 2 kilometers from Quan De temple to many main streets inside Phan Thiet city and turned back to the starting point.
The three-day festival included a series of cultural activities, traditional Chinese costume performances, dragon dances, classic dramas, and Chinese folk games. Since its fanciful and unique traits, Nghinh Ong Quan Thanh festival has been chosen as the traditional festival of the locality to serve for the growing demand of tourism.
By My Thien
(Photos: Duy Tuan)