Family, Friends, And Neighbors

On Independence Day, 2006, like all towns across the USA, there were some things going on in town in celebration of the signing of the Declaration Of Independence in 1776. Many military things and some square dancing, to mention a couple. But, also, in my town of Raleigh, North Carolina, some Montagnards, from the country of Vietnam, put on a show of their own to show us Americans some of the musical instruments and dances that they sometimes perform in Vietnam. Here is a picture of them preparing the gongs. My friend, Glun Siu, and his daughter, Nip, were participants in this performance.

O, by the way, clicking on these small pictures will show you much larger versions.

This was the MC.

Some horn-like instrument.

A xylophone-like instrument.

Some singing. To listen to a 3 minute, 1.45mb Wave file, click here.

A ting-ling.

A panpipe type of thing.

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Here, my friend Glun Siu is the main player on the gongs. To listen to a 48 second, 392kb Wave file of Glun and his friends playing the gongs, click here. To listen to a 3 minute, 1.4mb Wave file click here.

A kind of flute. To listen to a 59 second, 476kb Wave file of this flute, click here.

More Singing.

Dancing. To watch a 53 second, 7.76mb, 320x240 AVI file, click here. This file is large, so give it time to download.

At the end of the program, the dancing girls walked out into the audience and took people's hands and led them onto the stage to dance with them. This picture shows people about half way around the stage, but before the dancing was over, there were enough people to completely encircle the stage.

Thank you for stopping by.

John Hamilton