The annual event is held jointly by the Japanese Consulate General in HCM City and the Japan National Tourism Organisation aiming to bring Japanese culture to local citizens and promote Japanese tourism in HCM City in particular and in Vietnam as a whole.
Participating in the 2014 festival themed ‘Feeling Japan’, young Vietnamese people have the chance to experience many unique cultural features of the land of rising sun via a number of interesting programmes featuring origami paper folding, Yukata dressing, Shibuya and Harajuku fashions, Japanese Karate martial art performance, Japanese tea ceremony, and a Ninja performance with audience participation.
Information on Japanese tourism, overseas study in Japan and support policies by the Japanese government to overseas Vietnamese students is also available at this year’s festival. Some of Japan’s famous films, including ‘Robo-G’ and ‘Voices of a Distant Star’ will also be screened as part of the festival.
Consul-General of Japan in HCM City, Satoshi Nakajima hailed the festival as an ideal platform for cultural exchange activities among Vietnamese and Japanese youths, thus improving Vietnamese people’s understanding about Japan and its traditional culture and people.
The 2014 festival is an important event marking the fine friendship between Vietnam and Japan over the past 40 years, Nguyen Huu Tho, President of the Vietnam Tourism Association (VITA), said, adding that the event would contribute significantly to boosting economic and tourism co-operation as well as cultural exchanges between the two countries.
The tourism sectors of Vietnam and Japan have also pledged to increase the number of Japanese tourists to Vietnam by 1 million and Vietnamese tourists to Japan by 200,000 in the coming years, Tho said.
