Green Rice Gallery in San Jose, Santa Clara County, United States | Art Gallery

Green Rice Gallery, a new home for contemporary Vietnamese art located in the heart of the Silicon

Valley, San Jose, CA, in the United States, celebrates its grand opening on March 4th with an exhibition titled The Call of the Mountain.

High in the mountains of Vietnam, far away from the cities, live various ethnic groups who are

collectively referred by the locals as the Dan Toc people.   Legend has it that the Vietnamese are

descendants of Lac Long Quan, son of the dragon princess of Dong Dinh lake, and Au Co, a

mountain fairy. Lac Long Quan married Au Co and together they had one hundred children. As

dragons thrived by the seas and rivers, and mountain fairies withered when being away from the

highlands, the couple eventually had to part. Lac Long Quan took half of the children down to the

land along the rivers and by the seas, while Au Co led the other children to the mountains. The

settlers in the low lands became known as the Kinh, and the mountain dwellers became known as

the Thuong. The term Dan Toc, which probably derives from Dan Toc Thieu So (ethnic people),

refers to the Thuong.

The Call of the Mountain is a celebration of the Dan Toc’s way of life. They are people who know

how to live in harmony with nature. They live within the most pristine mountain landscape of

Southeast Asia, covered by clouds and fogs, where progress of civilization seems to freeze in time.

The splendor of nature, the harmony of life and the wisdom of the mountain people are the

underlying themes of the exhibition at Green Rice Gallery.

The Call of the Mountain exhibition at Green Rice Gallery features four artists: Dinh Thi Tham Poong, Kai Hoang, Vu Cuong, and

Jenny Do.