Friendship singing contest helps promote China-Vietnam ties

"For years, I have been using a popular Chinese music application to listen to Chinese songs online and sing along. I also use a Chinese video application called TikTok. These applications have helped me a lot in improving my singing techniques and Chinese skills," Ha said, adding that she also invited a Chinese teacher to tutor her for two months before the contest.

"I think music exchange programs will contribute to closer friendship and cooperation between Vietnam and China in fields like culture and art," Ha said, proposing that relevant agencies and institutions offer more music scholarships and organize more related visits in the two countries.

Her wishes were echoed by Vietnamese culture officials and veteran artists.

"This singing contest is a people's diplomacy activity which helps foster the traditional friendship between Vietnam and China, offering opportunities for the two sides to beef up exchanges and cooperation on arts in general and on music in particular," Nguyen Quang Vinh, acting director of the Department of Performing Arts under the Vietnamese Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, told Xinhua after the contest.

Noting that through the annual event, "many young singers, both Vietnamese and Chinese, have reaped successes," Vinh called for artists, students and lecturers of arts to visit countries of each other more often to exchange experience and expertise via seminars and fact-finding tours.

"It is better and more interesting for them to visit art institutions in the two countries, getting to know each other's culture and art more deeply, not just attending contests and then coming home," the official stated.

Hoang Xuan Binh, head of the contest's organizing board and vice director of the Vietnam National Music, Song and Dance Theater, also stated that frequent studies, seminars, visits and performances in Vietnam and China "will help not only preserve traditional culture and arts of the two countries but also catch up with the new age."

Peng Shituan, cultural counselor of the Chinese Embassy in Vietnam, spoke highly of the annual contest, initiated by the Chinese side in 2005 and then held alternatively in China and Vietnam, as well as the bilateral cultural cooperation between the two countries.