The flower and book streets in downtown Ho Chi Minh City each received more than 1 million visitors, including a large number of foreigners, during their seven-day Tet operation starting Jan 28.
According to Tran Hung Viet, CEO of Saigontourist, organizer of the Nguyen Hue Flower Street, most visitors are locals in HCMC and from neighboring provinces as well as foreigners.
The street, which sparkled with a variety of rare, gorgeous flowers and stunning decorative, rustic landscape, was almost never empty of visitors, even at midday and midnight.
Though the quantity of flowers this year dropped compared to that in last year’s Tet, the flower fest, in its 11th year, had this year’s cool weather on its side, as the flowers were kept fresh longer.
With the fest closing on Feb 3 night, traffic has resumed on Nguyen Hue street since 6am, Feb 4.
Meanwhile, the book fest on Mac Thi Buoi, Nguyen Hue and Ngo Duc Ke streets in district 1, which also closed on Feb 3 night, also welcomed some 1 million visitors, who came to peruse or buy the books and take part in exciting exchange activities.
The free reading section jointly put on by the American Consulate General and FPT University drew some 9,700 readers.
With some 50,000 books sold within seven days, the participating companies’ total sales reached over VND3.4 billion (US$160,380).
According to the organizer, the two bestsellers at this year’s book fest are both about legendary general Vo Nguyen Giap, whose death in Oct 2013 aroused profound grief locally and worldwide.
The city’s General Science Library also took part in the book street, showcasing their books for the visually impaired including audio books, Braille books and those with protruding illustrations.
One of its highlights is the showcase of books and photos which affirm the country’s sovereignty over the Hoang Sa (Paracel) and the Truong Sa (Spratly) archipelagos in the East Sea. The fest also showcased 80 file photos about General Vo Nguyen Giap’s life and military career.
“Don ca tai tu” (southern folk music), which has recently been recognized by UNESCO as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, was also highlighted at the book street, with the UNESCO recognition certificate, books, DVDs, photos and musical instruments typically used with the genre on display.
Đăng ký: VietNam News