Presented last year as a street food event on the Peel Basin, Chợ Đêm will be transformed from July 18 to 21 into a festival that aims to be a meeting place between different generations of Vietnamese living in Quebec.
“There is a distance between different Vietnamese generations,” says Charles Nguyen, who co-founded the event to ensure that young people from the Vietnamese diaspora keep their culture alive. “The goal is to sow the seed among young people to continue and cultivate this heritage.”
The president of the Association of Vietnamese Quebecers and head of cultural programming for Chợ Đêm — which means night market — explains that dialogue is sometimes difficult between the different generations of Vietnamese living in Quebec. Mr. Nguyen adds that even if young people understand the values of Vietnam and perpetuate certain traditions, there is always a distance with their elders. His hope is that events like Chợ Đêm will allow young people not only to understand their culture of origin, but also to understand themselves as Vietnamese Quebecers. “The main thing is to revalue culture in its own way.”
“The beauty of Vietnamese culture is that food has always been our way of showing affection,” adds Trang Tran, co-founder of the festival. Vietnamese foods remind her the dishes that her mother cooked for her when she was a student. She explains that the festival was inspired by the organizers’ personal experiences with food. As a result, the Peel Basin is taking on the feel of a real night market, an essential place in Vietnam for locals to shop and socialize there every day. It will also become a gathering point for families who want to reconnect with their native culture. “There’s nothing more heartwarming than seeing a grandma and grandpa, their children and grandchildren sitting around a Vietnamese dish and listening to Vietnamese music,” says Charles Nguyen, with a smile on his face.
One of the big new features this year, with the event being transformed into a festival, is the addition to the lineup of Vietnamese folk dancers and musicians as well as V-pop groups, a musical genre similar to K-pop whose lyrics are sung in Vietnamese. DJ Tremblix will close the festivities on Sunday evening by mixing electronic music, afrobeats and hip-hop.
The event attracted over 15,000 visitors last summer. The goal was also to spread Vietnamese recipes within the Montreal community. Imperial rolls, vegetarian dumplings, fried wontons, poke, tuna tataki and chicken pho will be on the menu during the festival at the Peel Basin dock. Typical Quebec dishes will also be offered, but in Vietnamese versions, such as General Tao poutine.