Gia Lai to host first int’t gong festival in Nov.

According to Gia Lai’s Mayor Phạm Thế Dũng, the festival aims to heighten the value of the Gong Cultural Space as an immaterial orally-transmitted cultural heritage of the human beings.
The opening ceremony will be held in Pleiku City with a performance of 300 gong players.
The festival includes some cultural activities, such as the rain praying ritual, the New Year welcoming ceremony, the tomb abandoning ritual, statue carving contest, the gong tuning contest; seminars (investment promotion, tourism development, cultural preservation), trade fairs, and exhibitions.
At the event, about 25–30 domestic gong troupes will have chances to compete with 3–5 foreign teams from Indonesia, Malaysia, Laos, and Cambodia.
By hosting the festival, the local authority of Gia Lai wants to convert the event into one of the province’s periodical cultural activity which can be organized every 2–3 years.
They have also taken some measures to preserve the gong culture, including introducing gong studies at local schools, conducting a census on gongs and gong players, purchasing gongs, and strictly banning the export of gongs.

By Xuân Hoàng