The Vietnam Festival 2015 saw the attendance of thousands of visitors who braced hot weather to enjoy Vietnamese food and appreciate traditional Vietnamese arts such as water puppetry, ao dai displays, and conical hat dances.
Vietnam’s contemporary music was also part of the event with performances by popular Vietnamese singers such as Hien Thuc, Van Mai Huong and Pham Anh Khoa.
The festival was not only attended by Japanese people, but also Vietnamese people living and working in Japan as well as visitors from India, Australia and the United States.
Iwao Matsuda, a member of the Japanese Diet, said the Vietnam Festival in Japan serves as a friendship bridge between the two countries’ people and has become an increasingly important cultural event in Japan.
For his part, Vietnamese Ambassador to Japan Doan Xuan Hung thanked the Japanese government and people for their support for Vietnam’s development, as well as Japanese friends for co-organising the festival.
He added that the festival furthers mutual understanding and would be held in other Japanese cities in the future
This was the seventh time the Vietnam Festival has been held in Japan with the first taking place in 2008 to mark the 35th anniversary of the establishment of Vietnam-Japan diplomatic relations.
