Published:  00:00 Monday - February 01, 2010

A record number of 1,000 ‘chung’ (square glutinous rice) cakes will be wrapped and boiled in one big pot this week and delivered directly to underprivileged children on the occasion of the Lunar New Year festival.

Recipients will include children in orphanages and centres for handicapped children and children infected with HIV/AIDS or suffering from other serious diseases.

The cakes will be wrapped by Hanoi children, parents, and students.

The record-setting ‘chung’ cake pot is part of the ‘merciful Tet’ programme to be held in Hanoi from February 5-7 by the Ha Lan media and tourism company with support from non-governmental organizations in Vietnam, the Hanoi Society for Preventing and Combating HIV/AIDS, and a number of foreign embassies.

A ‘merciful Tet’ fair will have 100 pavilions, many of them displaying products made by orphans and disabled children as well as products made by craft villages.

Many other cultural activities will occur on the sidelines of the event, including performing lion dances, composing parallel sentences, seeing off the Kitchen God, and laying fruit tables, together with many folk games.

A music gala will take place on February 7 to raise funds for charity and present gifts to 300 disadvantaged children from Hanoi.

The organizers expect ‘merciful Tet’ to become an annual event for children nationwide.