London: Vietnamese people living in the UK have joined local people in a series of activities imbued with Vietnam’s traditional cultural features to welcome the Lunar New Year of the Dragon.

The biggest annual festival of the Vietnamese community in the UK, the event attracted a large number of participants, with folk games, martial arts performances, and singing in Vietnamese.

A contest to wrap ‘banh chung’ (square sticky rice cake), a traditional dish for the Lunar New Year (Tet) Festival of Vietnamese people, was also held and joined in by many people.

Participants also had an opportunity to attend the spring fair, with traditional specialties such as Tet jam, salted/sugared dried fruits, green tea, banh chung, spring rolls, fresh fruits imported from Vietnam, and flowers and ornamental plants such as peach blossom, apricot blossom, and kumquat.

Speaking at the event, Vietnamese Ambassador to the UK Nguyen Hoang Long affirmed that the embassy always accompanies overseas Vietnamese in the UK in communit
y activities, contributing to preserving and promoting the cultural and humanistic values of the Vietnamese people./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency