Vietnam festival helps tighten friendship with Japan

Governor of the Japanese locality Kuroiwa Yuji stressed that the festival will be an opportunity for local residents to get better insights into a beautiful Vietnam, thus promoting people-to-people ties. An exchange event will also be held from August to September to introduce Vietnamese cuisine’s standout features to local people and tourists.

Besides, there will be investment and tourism promotion events, as well as activities boosting economic and trade cooperation between localities of both sides, he added, saying this demonstrates the festival's substantive contributions to bilateral ties, which are developing sustainably.

Vietnamese Ambassador Pham Quang Hieu, for his part, spoke highly the local administration's efforts to organise the annual festival, which he described as typical for locality-to-locality connections and also a model for similar events to be arranged in other localities of Japan.

He stressed that the annual festival has bridged the Vietnamese community and Kanagawa people, helping strengthen the friendship and mutual trust between the two countries’ people.

According to the organising board, the festival will also feature performances of Vietnamese water puppetry and Vovinam (Vietnamese traditional martial art), folk games, a music exchange, and a Japanese speaking contest for international students in Kanagawa.

Another highlight is the introduction of the script of “Princess Anio”, a special opera premiered last year to mark the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam - Japan diplomatic ties. The opera is based on the love story between Sotaro Araki, a merchant from Nagasaki of Japan, and Princess Ngoc Hoa (called Princess Anio by Japanese) in Hoi An of Vietnam during the trading era of the Shuinsen in the early 17th century.

Vietnam, with more than 34,000 nationals in Kanagawa, becomes the second largest foreign community there. The Japanese prefecture is located just south of Tokyo and boasts a population of over 9.2 million.