Quan Ho Folk Songs of Bac Ninh

Quan ho is sung in pairs and answered in pairs. A group of men from one village sings a verse, and women from a partner village answer it with the same melody and different words, and the exchange can run for hours across hundreds of tunes. Villages hold these partnerships across generations, with obligations of hospitality attached to them. The singing is unaccompanied, the women in layered ao tu than under a wide flat hat hanging from its ribbons, the men in turbans carrying umbrellas. It belongs to the spring festival season in Bac Ninh and Bac Giang, when songs are traded between boats on temple ponds. UNESCO added it to its representative list in 2009.

What you actually see

• The boat singing - pairs answering each other from small boats on a temple pond.
• The non quai thao - the wide flat palm hat with long ribbons worn by the women.
• The Lim festival - the largest gathering, held in the first lunar month.
• Betel offering - trays of folded betel passed between groups as an invitation to sing.

When to go

The season runs through the first and second lunar months, roughly February and March, and the Lim festival on the thirteenth day of the first month is the busiest single day. Outside the season, singing houses in Bac Ninh arrange performances for groups by prior booking. Day trips from Hanoi are straightforward, about an hour each way by road.

Honest expectations

Lim is extremely crowded, the pond is ringed several deep, and amplified stages compete with the unamplified singing that is the point of it. Some boat singing is staged for cameras. Nothing is translated, so the pleasure is in the sound and the exchange rather than the words. Arranged performances out of season can feel like a recital.

Nearby

The But Thap and Dau pagodas stand in the same district of Bac Ninh.