Permanent Deputy Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee Phan Ngoc Tho, along with representatives of a number of departments and agencies, local people, as well as tourists, participated in the procession offering lotus flowers to President Ho Chi Minh at the Special National Monument - President Ho Chi Minh’s childhood Memorial House in Duong No Village (Phu Duong Commune, Hue City) on the morning of May 19th.

On the afternoon of May 15th, at Lieu Quan Buddhist Cultural Center, the Executive Board of provincial Buddhist Sangha and the Organizing Board of the Vesak Day Celebration of Buddhist Calendar 2568 held the opening ceremony of the Buddhist cultural exhibition themed “Fragrance of the Lotus”. This significant event is part of the series of activities for the Vesak Week of Buddhist Calendar 2568 in 2024.

Thua Thien Hue is a region with many dishes honored in the “Journey to find the cultural value of typical Vietnamese cuisine” including Hue beef noodles, tapioca dumplings stuffed with roasted pork sweet soup, mussel rice, tapioca dumplings, mixed vegetarian fig salad, vegetarian rice steamed in lotus leaf.

Thua Thien Hue has the most dishes honored in Phase I of the project, including Hue beef noodle soup, tapioca dumpling stuffed with roasted pork sweet soup, mussel rice, tapioca dumplings, vegetarian fig salad, and vegetarian steamed rice wrapped in lotus leaf.

These are 6 of 121 Vietnamese culinary dishes that have just been honored by the Vietnam Cuisine Culture Association (VCCA) as typical national dishes in phase I of a project titled "Building and Developing Vietnamese Culinary Culture into a National Brand Name”. All of these 6 dishes, including: Hue beef noodle soup, glutinous rice dumplings stuffed with roasted pork in sweet soup, mussel rice, banh loc (glutinous rice dumplings), vegetarian fig salad, and lotus-leaf-wrapped steamed rice; all are close to the gardens and paddy fields of the land.

Visitors to Hue in the summer season are greeted with the sight of fragrant lotus blossoms adorning Tinh Tam Lake, their white petals fluttering like delicate butterflies in the breeze. The gentle and refreshing fragrance of lotus permeates the surroundings, and a passing encounter with this scene instantly uplifts one's spirits.

In a late summer afternoon, I climbed up the slope in the western hilly area of Hue to visit an artist.

On the evening of June 23, the Hue Lotus Festival 2023, themed "Lotus Beautifies Hue," was officially opened at Tinh Tam Lake in Hue City. The event is directed by the Provincial People's Committee and organized by the Department of Tourism in collaboration with LAATA Vietnam Limited Liability Company, with the participation of Hue Vietnam Organic Company Limited, Vietjet Aviation Joint Stock Company, and several other businesses from both within and outside the province.

The expansion of lotus area also means that the area of polluted water surface is gradually narrowed. The lotus does not only grow at heritage sites but also exists in landscape lakes of temples, pagodas, shrines, showing off its fragrance in the remote countryside...

After two previous festivals in 2018 (themed "The Legend of a Flower") and 2022 (themed "Lotus - Essence of Heaven and Earth"), the Hue Lotus Festival 2023 with the theme "Lotus Beautifies Hue" will be held at Tinh Tam Lake for three days, from June 23rd to June 25th.