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Lim Festival in Hanoi celebrates northern Vietnam's beloved quan ho folk songs and the founder of these songs, Hieu Trung Hau. Practicing a traditional dramatic art form that dates back several centuries, performers at this annual festival in the Bac Ninh Province, converse in a specific style of quan ho folk singing. It takes place every year on 13th day of the 1st lunar month.
Features of Lim Festival in Hanoi
- The Lim Festival is a special cultural activity in the North Vietnam.
- The festival celebrates the quan ho folk song which has become a part of the national culture and a typical folk song, most favorite in the Red River Delta region.
- Apart from the usual competitions and performances that accompany other Vietnamese festivals, singing is the most essential part of this festival.
- The sound of this music acts as a kind of remembrance for the Vietnamese people of their love for their country and its people, especially those who work in the fields.
- The songs are incredibly complex demanding the performers to have a good understanding of the style and posses a quick mind to compose and deliver the lines according to the strict rules of the style.
- Wearing the traditional quan ho clothing, the participants make for a spectacular sight representing this fascinating custom.
- Millions of visitors come here to enjoy the dialogues performances between 'lien anh' or male singers and 'lien chi' or female singers, the country's most skilled quan ho singers.
- Besides this, visitors can come to the Lim Festival to enjoy the weaving competition of the Noi Due girls.
- The Noi Due girls weave and sing quan ho songs.
- Like other religious festivals, the Lim Festival goes through all the ritual stages, from the procession to the worshipping ceremony including other activities too.
- The Lim Festival is also celebrated with traditional temple games.
- In one game, teenage girls must mind a stranger's baby, chew pieces of sugar cane in order to make fuel to start a fire, cook rice and prevent a frog from jumping out of a circle marked on the ground.
- If the baby cries, the fire goes out or the frog escapes, the girl is disqualified.
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