On International Children’s Day, the Vietnam Museum of Ethnology will organize the program “Friendship Connections” on Saturday, 29th May and Sunday, 30th May 2010, from 8:30 am to 17:30 p.m.
“Friendship Connections” is an opportunity for Vietnamese and foreign children in Hanoi to represent the cultures of each country through costume shows, dancing, singing, playing musical instruments, games and toys. Those activities will help children to find out the diversity, the similarities, the differences and the cultural integration among the countries, between West and East, between tradition and modernity, as well as to enhance the mutual understandings among youth from different countries.
The cultural diversity will be presented through shows of traditional costumes from Vietnam, India, Japan, Korea, Indonesia, Austria and Russia, as well as through songs and dances from India, Russia and Germany; all of which will be performed by Vietnamese and foreign children.
The cultural integration will be presented through the musical instrument performance including trac (bamboo percussion sticks), wooden bell, chop and drum played by the children of the Trac Association from Nam Dinh province.
A series of traditional games will represent the similarities and differences of the countries such as: Cat chases mouse (Germany, Vietnam), Rabbits looking for burrow (Vietnam), Rabbits in the forest (Russia), Glass marbles (Greece, Vietnam), Blind-man knocking earthenware pot (Vietnam), Knocking pot (Germany), Hidden objects (Vietnam), Peo peo handkerchief (Italia), Dropping bag (Germany), Mandarin Square Capturing (Vietnam, Philippines, Indonesia), Walking on stilts (Vietnam), walking on coconut shells (Thailand), Hopscotch (England, Japan, Jordan, Indonesia and Vietnam), Kia-Nọ (Vietnam) and Dominos. Also, children can play To ma mang and Tug of war (Vietnam), Monkey holds trees (Thailand), Chasing or Kho kho (India), Croquet (England, France), Twister (England), Smiling face and Bamboo dragonfly (Japan), Throwing sticks into tube or Toho (Korea).
In particular, children will learn how to make Vietnamese traditional toys such as: making animal from leaves (grasshoppers, deer, rabbits, flowers, and pinwheels), paper animals, bamboo dragonflies, powdered animals, flower and fruit, coiled paper animals and dolls and coloring masks; and folding paper - origami of Japan.
Additionally, children will be able to enjoy the films of Vietnamese and world legends in wide screen, “3D and moving” films and folk story telling by Mr. Nguyen Van Long, and Japanese and Vietnamese comics. Children can try on the traditional costumes of Vietnam, Korea, Indonesia and Japan and make traditional-costume-shaped bookmarks of Vietnam and other countries.
The program is made possible with the assistance from the embassies in Hanoi: Austria, Germany, India, Japan, Philippines, Russia, Thailand, and United Kingdom.
2005 Mid-autumn Festival -
Taking off children's dreams
(09/16) 
