Celebration

(click each picture to see the movie and hear the song). To learn more about traditional Vietnamese music visit the Be Hat Dan Ca Website.

Our final evening at the MiMi Hotel was a huge celebration. The cooks made a feast then joined us for green tea and songs. Vietnamese people love music - folk music, traditional, rock-and-roll, Karaoke and American pop.

As we gathered after our meal to sing and listen, we were honored to have our hosts join us and share their music. They wanted us to share some, too, but since our culture is so mixed up, it was difficult for us to think of any folk or traditional songs that we all knew. Two people in our group are from the UK - we just didn't know all the same songs. But we tried. Pathetically.

The first song here is a traditional Vietnamese folk song, "Trống cơm," a tragic story of a boy and the "rice drum.' The second is an American pop song, "Seasons in the Sun" and it sounds so lovely in Vietnamese. If you want to see the words and hear the tune, click the song title. (a poor copy of the song with words can be heard here). Viet joins in for the final lines in English. Viet often uses American songs to teach English to his classes, so he knows the words to a lot of American style music. Do you recognize this song?