CITY DIARY
That drumming noise during the mid-autumn festival in Vietnam
Stivi Cooke
Updated : 08/27/2014
We are nearing the [Vietnamese] mid-autumn festival – Tet Trung thu – which also includes the kids’ version: dressing up in dragon costumes, banging on big drums….
It’s impossible to ignore, you know it’s coming because every kid or at least most boys are busy practicing their drum beats on whatever is handy. Remember the corny jungle drums from King Kong? Well these drums are like that except there are only three notes – loud, mildly loud, and slightly loud…
Some kids get drums bigger than an adult and enlist a team of other kids to push them around on a wooden cart with the lucky drummer sitting on top.
As annoying as it is for me to listen to this for weeks, it’s also great that the kids have a project and a purpose and contribute to their culture. I just wish someone would introduce the idea of a guitar or ukulele or something! The beat is mind-numbing….
Still it could be worse. It’s not as loud as wedding music or construction truck horns.
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