Culture explored through folktales

With music, dance and food, the Vietnamese Student Association (VSA) aimed at making Saturday night an evening of entertainment and excitement.

They brought SCSU students, faculties and community members to experience Vietnamese culture including scenery, customs and culture.

This year, the theme of Vietnamese Night was ancient folktales.

The VSA focused on tradition, which was mainly shown through their decorations.

They drew two big traditional paintings of arrays of birds, walking deer and a big star in the center. According to the president of VSA Ha Le, it took eight hours to prepare.

“Vietnamese people come from the same father and mother. The mother is like a fairy. The father is like dragon. They met each other and were married. They stay in Vietnam and gave birth to a hundred eggs. They (the eggs) become human. They (their population) start growing and growing and form the Vietnamese people,” Le said.

In addition to Le, Vice President of Student Life and Development Wanda Overland and Angie Witte, Advisor of VSA also spoke during the night.

Overland thanked everybody who came to the Vietnamese Night and people who always support every cultural night.

“As you’ve already seen on the video, students really spend a lot of time creating the program, food, customs,” Overland said. “They teach us a great deal about who they are as a culture.”

The performance started with the song “Dong Mau Lac Hong”, which means “Pride of our Heritage.”

Two girls came to the stage with ancient Vietnamese instruments from the center of the audience, which is a fairly unique way to perform.

After that, the Melinh Group performed “Trong Com,” which is a traditional drum dance.

According to those that spoke at Vietnamese Night, they put rice into the drum as a way of blessing the harvest.

The next performance was a Vietnamese Fan Dance.

According to Le, they practiced this dance for a long time, and it became a very successful performance.

Le said that they had just started practice before fall break.

A traditional fashion show presented Vietnamese traditional dress—Ao Dai. Ao Dai is usually composed of one plain color which shows the diligence and kindheartedness of Vietnamese people.

The last performance was a break dance, which was performed by the SCSU break dance club members, represented modern Vietnam.

These last two performances combined the traditional and modern elements of Vietnamese culture. The Viet Flavor Restaurant in Sartell catered the event.

They served egg rolls, spring rolls, Viet papaya salad, fried noodle, ginger chicken, barbecued pork chops and egg custard.

Cole Ries, a graduate student from SCSU, said he attended seven cultural nights and enjoyed this whole performance.

“I really like the food they provided tonight. It is delicious. And their decoration shows their tradition. And the music is good.” Ries said.