Environment
Youth invoke Kitchen Gods for a cleaner Hanoi
  • By M.C. | dtinews.vn | February 10, 2015 01:22 PM
 >>  “No plastic bag littering on Kitchen God Day” campaign

A group of young people in Hanoi are urging others to stop polluting the city's ponds, lakes and rivers with trash, invoking the Kitchen Gods to their cause.

 

Banners and signs proclaim "Release the fish, don't release the bags"

Their campaign to "release carp not litter" will feature a mass bicycle rise on February 8-11, to Thien Quang Lake and Long Bien Bridge to raise awareness. They will ask people to release fish into the water, and symbolically collect the discarded plastic bags.

They are promoting “Duong Tao Quan” (Kitchen Gods' Road), and plan to cycle around the city carrying banners and placards with the message "Release the fish, don't release the bags". They will go from Ly Tu Trong Statue on Thanh Nien Street to popular streets in Hanoi like Yen Phu, Tran Nhat Duat, Dinh Tien Hoang streets.

Starting the campaign

More than 100 volunteers turned out for the campaign last year. They went to bridges and riverbanks popular for Tet celebrations in Hanoi and urged holidaymakers not to throw their rubbish or burnt offering into the water. They also helped people release carp and collected the plastic bags afterwards.

Going to bridges to raise people's awareness

On the 23rd day of the twelfth lunar month, the Kitchen Gods return to heaven to report the activities of every household over the past year to the emperor of the heavens and pray for the next year's prosperity. On this day, it is held, people hold a grand farewell for the gods and release live carp to help the gods make their journey.

Recently, the tradition raised concerns as many people keep the fish in plastic bags and, after releasing the fish, threw the plastic bag into the water after them, or simply discarded them. The bags ended up blocking sewage pipe or suffocating aquatic wildlife or were blown around streets, adding to the rubbish already thoughtlessly discarded there.

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