Vietnam’s stall attracts interest at night market
Deryn, Uyen and Minh Phuong show off traditional Vietnamese dress
Vietnam’s stall attracted many passersby with its colourful banner “Vietnamese Traditional Craft”. Long, Le Na and Quynh Anh had put their skills to work making the display.
Work by one of the most famous Vietnamese folk painting artists, Dong Ho, was on sale along with other handcrafts. Uyen and Minh Phuong looked quite cute and unique in the Vietnamese traditional dresses the Ao Dai and the Ao Ba Ba including the Vietnamese traditional hat (Non la).
They were a major attraction at the night market. Many visitors stopped front of our stall and looked at Uyen and Phuong in their lovely dresses. Some tourists and reporters took photographs and a photo appeared in the Dominion Post the next day.
If Uyen and Minh Phuong were our beautiful model stars in traditional dresses, so Thai Phuong and Long were our successful business stars. Both of them had a great chance to practice not only English speaking skills but also their selling skills. I haven’t ever heard them speak this quickly before, as they explained to visitors about our folk painting pictures. Seemingly, each time they sold some pictures, they forgot their tiredness and lovely smiles were always was on their lips. It was extremely surprising that their mouths could work so hard without stopping the whole time from 4 pm to 10 pm. I guess that they spoke about folk painting in their dreams that night.
Most visitors who came to our stall were really pleased with our products and interested to learn about Vietnamese unique folk painting art. Some of the visitors were our conversation volunteers. In particular, Tania and Jeremy helped us a lot to decorate the stall and clarify information we couldn’t explain clearly to visitors.
Moreover, we met a lot of Vietnamese people who are living, working and studying in New Zealand. We exchanged our addresses, emails, and living and studying experiences. It made us feel warm in our hearts. The night market finished at 10 pm and we finished a successful and hard working day. Although all of us were really tired, with the tiredness was happiness and satisfaction with the day. Honestly, this fantastic event really is a good opportunity for us to practise English with not only Kiwis but also many kinds of English accents from different countries. This market is also one of the best chances for us to introduce people to Vietnam, a beautiful, peaceful and friendly country through our hand crafts and especially our unique folk painting art.
