Exciting Vietnamese festival in Kanagawa prefecture, Japan

On the morning of September 9, in the port city of Yokohama, the capital of Kanagawa province, Japan, the Vietnam Festival took place with the theme "Connecting to the future".

Art performance at the Vietnam festival in Japan. (Source: VNA)

This year's event was attended by Vietnamese Ambassador to Japan Pham Quang Hieu, Governor of Kanagawa Prefecture Kuroiwa Yuji, and many guests and people from both countries.

Speaking at the opening ceremony, Governor Yuji expressed his joy that the festival still took place in a joyful and warm atmosphere despite the weather being somewhat affected by storm No. 13, which caused light rain in the event area.

He said that this is a very meaningful event after the Covid-19 pandemic has truly passed and marks the complete restoration of exchange and cooperation activities between the people of Vietnam and Japan in general and with Kanagawa province in particular.

For his part, Ambassador Pham Quang Hieu emphasized that in the context of Vietnam and Japan celebrating the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations, many exchange and cooperation activities have been and are being held in both countries, including this festival.

With the theme “Connecting to the future”, this year’s festival conveys the message of wishing the people of the two countries to further strengthen their solidarity and friendship in the spirit of “Vietnam and Japan together towards the future, reaching out to the world”.

Ambassador Pham Quang Hieu also hopes that the Kanagawa Festival in Vietnam next November will be a great success.

First held in 2015, the Vietnam Festival in Kanagawa has become an annual event, except for the 2 years of the Covid-19 pandemic, helping to strengthen solidarity and mutual understanding between the people of Kanagawa in particular and Japan in general with Vietnam.

In particular, this year's festival takes place within the framework of "Vietnam Day in Kanagawa Prefecture" with a series of investment promotion and tourism promotion activities.

This year's festival has over 80 booths introducing Vietnamese culinary culture and unique folk art forms to the people of Kanagawa province, such as Dong Ho painting making, water puppetry, Bac Ninh Quan Ho singing, etc.

In addition, there are also in-depth programs introducing Vietnam tourism, corners to learn about Vietnamese culture and Vietnamese language, and a Japanese speech contest for international students in Kanagawa.

Located south of Tokyo, Kanagawa Prefecture has an area of 2,415 ^km2 and a population of over 9.2 million people, the second most populous in Japan.

In recent years, the number of Vietnamese people living and working in Kanagawa has continuously increased, making Vietnam the second largest foreign community out of more than 170 countries/territories with people living in this province with more than 30,000 people.

The festival will take place until September 10 and is expected to attract hundreds of thousands of visitors.

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