The three-day festival will commemorate a Chinese general and warrior-saint honoured by the Hoa (Chinese Vietnamese) community.

The activities will begin at 5am on August 19 with nearly 900 Hoa people marching through the central streets of Phan Thiet city, such as Nguyen Hue, Tran Hung Dao, Hai Thuong Lan Ong, Nguyen Tri Phuong and Ngo Si Lien.

The celebration will continue with an enormous parade filled with costumed performers, mystical dragon outfits and lion dancers, and the highlight ò the event will be a major performance by dragon dancers coming from around the country.

For the occasion, Ong Pagoda (Guan Kung Temple) will be decorated with flower garlands and multi-coloured lanterns and people will gather there to pray for happiness, good health and good fortune for their families and friends.

The festival will also include a Vietnam-Chinese cuisine fair. The festival, a long-standing tradition of the ethnic Chinese community in Phan Thiet city, was organised for the first time in 2006 and has since become an even larger tourism event.