Checking out the ACM Weekend Viet Fest

On 1 June 2008, I met up with Carcar. We checked out the ACM Weekend Viet Fest that was held at Asian Civilisation Museum (Empress Place). Right above is a photo that I had taken while we were walking across Cavenagh Bridge. Do you notice that there was a van providing free Milo drinks, and many red pavilion-like tents in the background? One of the tents sold hats that were commonly found in Vietnam.



The organisers of the ACM Weekend Viet Fest deserve a lot of praises for the interesting programme that has been planned. We managed to catch glimpses of a demonstration on the making of Vietnamese Rice Paper Rolls by IndoChine.

There was a lady who demonstrated the art of Cham Weaving. I am pretty amazed by the technology behind it. It may be simple compared to the technology of today, but it is nevertheless ingenious in its own way.



It was free admission to the museum that day, and both Carcar and myself took the chance to tour every exhibition halls in the museum. Of course, we made sure that we checked out the Viet Nam! From Myth To Modernity exhibition.

My favourite part of the ACM Weekend Viet Fest was the Stone Musical Instrument Performance by Phu Dong Traditional Band from Vietnam. It was simply refreshing and interesting to be able to hear how music from Vietnam would sound like. I was rather fascinated by instruments such as the monochord.

To some extent, the music appeared to be influenced by Chinese music. Somehow, it reminded me to some extent, of the Chinese music that I had played and listened to when I was playing in the Chinese Orchestra during my secondary school years. I was also impressed when one of the musicians used the leaves that were plucked nearby the museum as instruments in which he blew lovely tunes on.


The monochord is the instrument on the right of the white table.


One of the musicians playing the monochord.



I think the musicians from the Phu Dong Traditional Band had put up a great performance. Cheers.

At the Viet Fest, we also managed to treat ourselves to a few Vietnamese dishes. There seemed limited choices of Vietnam food fare at the Fest, and I overheard one Vietnamese visitor remarking that the mango salad that she had in Vietnam tastes much better than the mango salad that she had at the fair. She could be right. Furthermore, I suppose it would be cheaper to get food in Vietnam than in Singapore.

Meantime, NHB Museums have put up a series of events and exhibitions as part of the Vietnam Festival (April - July 2008), do find out more about the Vietnam Festival here: http://www.vietnamfestival.sg