Author: jezzabellemente

CHINA, Sept 19 (Bernama) — On the eve of the Mid-Autumn Festival, which falls on September 17 this year, the Information Office and the Foreign Affairs Office of the People’s Government of Yunnan Province held the Reception Celebrating the 75^th Anniversary of the Founding of the People’s Republic of China & the “Blooming Flowers and Full Moon” China-Vietnam Mid-Autumn Festival Gala in Ho Chi Minh City and the Chinese Consulate-General in Ho Chi Minh City.

A couple of days ago, Super Typhoon Yagi wreaked havoc in northern Vietnam, causing significant property damage and heavy casualties. The typhoon also unleashed destruction across multiple provinces in southern China. Before the artistic performances started, a dozen Chinese-funded business associations in Vietnam including the China Business Association Ho Chi Minh City Branch donated VND3.8 billion (equivalent to RMB1.1 million) to the Vietnam Fatherland Front in Ho Chi Minh City.

The gala opened with the dance performance “Beauty in Harmony.” Themed “Blooming Flowers and Full Moon,” the gala consisted of four parts: “Flowers” (Blossoms in Abundance), “Prosperity” (A Year of Good Fortune and Prosperity), “Moon” (Full Moon during Mid-Autumn Festival), and “Reunion” (Celebrating Together). Chinese and Vietnamese artists and art troupes together celebrated the Mid-Autumn Festival and the China-Vietnam friendship with wonderful song and dance performances.

In Vietnam, the Mid-Autumn Festival is an important occasion for family reunions and fun for the kids. The gala featured an interactive program “Blessings from Chang’e,” which was specifically designed for Vietnamese children. Dressed as Chang’e, the Chinese Goddess of the Moon, the dancers moved through the audience, distributing Mid-Autumn Festival themed cultural and creative products such as drawstring pouches, little rabbit figurines, and lanterns.

“I have been to Kunming, Dali, and Shangri-La in Yunnan. Yunnan is an amazing and beautiful place, and the Chinese people are very friendly and hospitable to us,” said Lam Quang Duc from Vietnam, who works as a Vietnamese-Chinese translator. He praised the fantastic performances by Vietnamese and Chinese artists at the gala, noting that they celebrated the deep friendship between the two countries.

“This is a gala featuring the interaction and merging between the traditional cultures of China and Vietnam,” said Miao Peng from Yunnan, China. He added that artists from both countries conveyed their best wishes for the future with song and dance performances, hoping to further expand people-to-people exchanges and promote mutual understanding and people-to-people bond between the two countries.

The gala is part of the 2024 “Blooming Flowers and Full Moon” Mid-Autumn Festival Cultural Exchange. The five-day event also features the “Sharing the Same Moon” Mid-Autumn Festival Cultural Salon and the “Harmony under the Same Moon” Photo Exhibition on A Many-Splendored Life in Yunnan.

Source : China Cultural Centre in Kuala Lumpur

http://mrem.bernama.com/viewsm.php?idm=49364

AsiaNet 0200394

​^{The rice enters harvest season in Jiabang Township, Congjiang County, southwest China’s Guizhou Province.}

GUIYANG, China, Sept. 19, 2024 /Xinhua-AsiaNet/–

Congjiang County, southwest China’s Guizhou Province, home to many ethnic groups, inherits an ancient and charming traditional Chinese agriculture — vast expanses of mountain slopes carved into rice paddies where rice, fish and ducks flourish in co-existence.

The agricultural feat of growing one season of rice, keeping a batch of fish and raising a batch of ducks in the same rice paddy has been inherited for thousands of years in Congjiang.

The rice-fish-duck ecosystem in the county was listed as a pilot project for the protection of the Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS) in 2011, and became the first batch of important agricultural cultural heritages in China in 2013.

With the start of China’s traditional solar term Grain Rain, or Guyu, agricultural activities will kick into high gear on the terraced fields. Farmers put rice seedlings into the rice fields, and meanwhile, put some fish fry. When the fish fry grow to two to three fingers wide, the newly-hatched ducklings will also be put into the fields.

The rice fields provide natural food for fish and ducks, and the fish and ducks remove pests and weeds from the fields, greatly reducing the use of pesticides and herbicides. Fish and duck dung provides natural organic fertilizer for rice. Rice, fish and ducks are harvested from one rice field at the same time.

The county has made full use of the rice-fish-duck ecosystem, protecting the agricultural cultural heritage and helping local people get rid of poverty and achieve rural revitalization at the same time.

During the 15th conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity held in Canada in December 2022, the rice-fish-duck ecosystem in Congjiang County demonstrated to the world the ancestral wisdom of farming and biodiversity conservation experiences of local people for thousands of years.

In 2023, the rice-fish-duck ecosystem in Congjiang was collected and recognized for its excellence during the fourth call of the Global Solicitation on Best Poverty Reduction Practices.

Congjiang County boasts Kam Rice of China, a special kind of rice that has been domesticated for thousands of years by the local Dong people in Guizhou. With ethnic groups accounting for 90 percent of its population, the county is home to rich and colorful ethnic cultures and reputed as the national ecological cultural gene park.

Entering the mountainous villages in the county, traditional residences, drum towers and ancient barns are scattered. During the harvest season in autumn, rows of golden rice hang in the villages, reshaping a beautiful landscape.

Source: Guizhou Provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Affairs