April 21st 2012
Art. I’m no where near a fan, nor someone who understands anything about art, totally illiterate.
Im trying to reason my trip and the ‘quest’ for my poor attempt to see what’s out there in the Hue Festival. After being on the bike trip outside, time to get back to the main purpose, joining the Festival itself. For a duration of 2 weeks ish, tourists particularly the French are flocking over to Hue, increasingly Russian.
I cant get my head around the way it’s being so poorly organised given the facts that it’s their 7th time doing it, some of the management also get trained, I was told, by sponsored French govt to know how to run these things, there’s support from the sponsors side as well. Yet my friends and I are confused about the way it’s being communicated. She’s been to Hue Festival a few times and me the first. We tried to get hold of the brochure with program listing from the Hue Festival Center, airports, and the street volunteer team.
Interesting line up includes the Ao Dai festival, Oriental Night, Vanessa Jousseame red pillows (which we missed – we arrived after mishaps of direction from various groups of people including locals and taxi drivers, they decided to end 30min before its ending time), Forbidden City Night – where they recommend a 600.000vnd royal banquet which we skipped the food but went to observe the odd show of the royal city at night, and other music shows.
To be well-prepared in dealing with the organiser’s incapability, for my next trip if it happens here are some tips:
1. Take a good and study the schedule you have in hand, go to the main center to get the big booklet.
2. Try to prioritise the performances you want to see. Some great local artists like Le Cat Trong Ly, Pho An Nhien they dont show consecutively.
3. Look for the public shows, which require no money or little.
4. Ao Dai show and the Oriental Night repeat twice so focus on the smaller show and performance first
5. Carry a wide angle lens camera
6. Be prepared to pay tourist price. Even if you’re a Vietnamese. We get at least 10 – 20% charge more for our southern ascent.
7. Use bike to travel around and you can find parking space easily.
8. Do visit the Children’s Painting Gallery and purchase a painting there, showcased near the Hai ba Trung school. Sales will get delivered to the Children School and cost around 1,000,000 for one.
9. Tackle the Dong Ba market with ease. Things to buy are Vietnamese hats, handmade paper fans locally produce, chopping boards unprocessed.
10. Try local cuisine as much as possible. Also there’s some french resto in various areas.
Caption: Le Ba Dang infamous art work took over the street of Le Loi.
Going with an sort of artist friend is a plus. I kinda get some of the vibe in me too. We visited a new art space – New Space Art Foundation house in the second level of bookstore and met with Thanh & Hai twin artist called themselves Le Brothers. They’re bound to have a July exhibition in Saigon. Also some DJ alternative music is being played here, several workshops.
And guess what? this is us trying to disguise as performance artists with our badge – although we paid for all our ticket entries.
At LE BROTHERS’ studio (one of the 2 I think), I sat on this face 
The old City id lidded up at night and looks prettier than daytime, just because I think at night you cant really see the broken arches, the peeled walls, pale and old-aged decorative figures and art work that has stood there for so long.
On the Oriental Night performance, all must sit on the bamboo sheets to watch the what so call representative culture in outfit, traditional costumes of nations around Asia. Perhaps with the exception of China.
The Oriental Night are probably for those who have not traveled overseas and get to see the typical ‘traditional’ outfits, most performed by the actual group from the guest country. Other areas of the space dedicated to other stages, mainly music.
On the main road, there’s parade, beer festival, folk song performance, all packed with a heavy festive spirit. The whole city dwellers anticipated the festival in a very serious way. I dont however see a lot of southerners taking part of the festival. One night when we were at a DJ station, we actually spotted a 70years old ish Hue local man, who been sitting there before we arrived and stayed until 10pm listening to the heavy drumming the bass sound and the entire crowd’s yelling. He got balls!
We left after 4 days being in the Hue and scratching the surface of the Festival. Maybe we will be back. Who knows.
