About 70,000 visitors attended the Quan The Am (Avalokitecvara)
Boddhisattva Festival that took place in the central city of Da Nang
from March 28-30.
The annual Buddhist event is
regarded as one of the most special tourism festivals in Vietnam. It
is also a community cultural event, which helps restore and promote the
cultural identity of the Vietnamese people.
The festival consisted of two parts, religious rituals and festive events.
The religious part included a ceremony to pray for peaceful country and prosperous people.
Festive events, including exhibitions of paintings, photos and
calligraphy, tea culture, folk singing, traditional boat-racing and
human chess, were organised as a warm up to the main festival.
The highlight of the event was the exhibition of King-monk Tran Nhan
Tong (1258-1308) statue. This is the biggest jade statue in Vietnam
which is made from a 4.5-tonne jade block. It was brought from the Vinh
Nghiem Pagoda in Ho Chi Minh City.-VNA