“Vietnam Culture Month in Lorient

HCM City set for French Music Festival

May 31, 2011 about Uncategorized

“Vietnam Culture Month in Lorient” leaves a good impression
“Vietnam Culture Month in Lorient” was held in France on May 5-29, providing the local people with an opportunity to learn more about Vietnamese culture through various activities.
As proposed by the L’Appel organisation, Lorient city, in co-ordination with Vietnam’s Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, chose May as “Vietnam Culture Month”.
L’Appel President Gildas Tregulier said the event focused on healthcare activities as well as culture, economics and literature.
It was also a chance to strengthen traditional cooperative ties among localities in Vietnam and the Bretagne region, he noted.
During the month, the people of Lorient attended seminars introducing Vietnam’s history, culture and tourism potential, a photography exhibition of the country’s landscape and people, films, cultural exchanges and a food festival.
Most notably, 120 examples of traditional long dresses (ao dai), symbolizing the beauty of Vietnamese women in the north, central and southern regions. The ao dai, designed by well-known Trong Nguyen, Viet Lien and Minh Hanh, impressed the French people.
Speaking at the closing ceremony of the Vietnam Culture Month, Vietnamese ambassador to France Le Kinh Tai expressed his gratitude towards the organising board, especially L’Appel.
He said he believes the event will open up new opportunities for Vietnam and France to strengthen ties in the future.
Dance contest picks up pace, model crashes out
Model Vu Thu Phuong and her partner Tihomir Gavrilov were the fourth couple to exit this season’s “Dancing with the Stars” reality show on Vietnam Television’s VTV3 after finishing last in the slow foxtrot and pase doble challenge last night.
Phuong’s slow foxtrot was deemed “disappointing” and involving “too many unnecessary lifting” by Chi Anh, one of the judges.
“The music and their steps did not even match,” was his harsh verdict.
The model has stood out with her flamboyant and revealing outfits but failed to convince the judges and audiences with her dancing talent.
In the last three weeks she had fallen to the bottom two of the competition, and finally went out after getting only 32 points for her latest routines.
At the other end of the scale was singer Thu Minh who did justice to her four-year dance academy training with a passionate and compelling pasa doble routine.
Inspired from the movie “The mask of Zorro”, Minh’s performance earned her 38 points with two perfect 10’s.
Second was Thanh Thuy, the actress who, in the slow foxtrot routine, played the role of a blind girl based on a moving love story.
Her 37 points only reiterated the fact that she is Minh’s biggest rival for the title. Since the first night, the two have taken turns to lead the competition.
The rest of the contestants, singers Anh Khoa, Nguyen Vu, and Thuy Tien, and actor Dai Nghia were joint third with 34 points each.
Tien and her partner Petyo Stoyanov were voted the most favorite couple for a second time by nationwide audience.
Khoa, the rock star who was only saved from elimination by audience votes last week, returned with a pase doble routine that was praised “powerful and convincing”.
The show is getting increasingly closer and seems set for a rousing finish.
Ho Chi Minh City set for French Music Festival
It’s Time“Fete de la Musique” (French Music Festival), a free music show organized around the world by the French government, will be held at the Institute of Cultural Exchange with France, or IDECAF, in Ho Chi Minh City June 17.
It will feature singers like Leu Phuong Anh and Tran Lan Nha, the band It’s Time, and dance troupe BigSouth, and bands from Thailand like Dreamers, Omega and Scooter.
Students from a French school in District 9, Marguerite Duras, will also perform at the show which welcomes all participants, amateur or professional.
Launched in 1982 by the French Ministry for Culture, “Fête de la Musique” has been organized in numerous countries, offering free music of all genres.
Dogs to take part in beauty pageant
The third annual Ho Chi Minh City “beauty contest” for dogs will be held at the Phu Tho Stadium June 3.
Competing animals will wear costumes, accessories, and make-up in the first round to show off their beauty.
The second round will see them parading their talents by running through obstacles and pipes.
The winner will get VND2 million (US$ 100).
The contest is organized by the HCMC Ornamental Creature Association – Kennel Club to provide dog breeders an opportunity to compare notes.
In related news, the ridgeback, a breed indigenous to Phu Quoc Island, will take part in the 2011 World Dog Show in Paris to be held by the Belgium-based Fédération Cynologique Internationale from July 7 to 10.
Phillip Noyce gives tips on film making in HCMC
On the occasion of the launch of his new book Backroads to Hollywood by Ingo Petzke about Noyce’s journey in Hollywood as an outsider, Australian director Phillip Noyce visited Vietnam for the forth time to promote the book, meet old cast and share tips on movie-making.
Landed in Ho Chi Minh City on Friday, Noyce joined the event Cinema Dinner and met the cast from his movie about Vietnam War, The Quiet American, in Continental Hotel, where a scene of the film was shot. He also represented Saigon Media and awarded a scholarship worth VND30 million(US$1500) to independent film maker Tran Ly Tri Tan.
On Saturday morning, Noyce held a workshop in Lotus University on the influence and importance of production and marketing team to a success or failure of a movie. He also gave his evaluations to winning works in the TVCreate competition organized by Lotus University and presented an award to a student who made his favorite poster in the design competition “Phillip Noyce and Vietnam.”
Later in the afternoon, Noyce met local film makers, shared tips on how to find capital to make a movie and his experience as a Hollywood director in Dist 10’s BHD Star Cinema.
Noyce will attend the launch of the second version of YxineFF, a film festival featuring real online short films made by local amateur and professional film directors before flying to Hanoi next week.
Born in 1950 in New South Wales, Phillip Noyce made his first short “Better to Reign in Hell” at the age of 18. The Quiet American got rave reviews and appeared in more than 20 top ten lists in 2002, including those of the US National Board of Review and the American Film Institute.
Kim Dong Publishers offer children big discounts
The Kim Dong Publishing House is giving children in Hanoi a special discount of up to 50% on books from May 28- June 1 to celebrate International Children’s Day.
Books available under the programme include thousands of newly published and reprinted titles in a various genres such as novels, comic books and reference books.
The promotion, the largest of its kind, is being held at four bookshops in Hanoi: 55 Quang Trung, 62 Ba Trieu, 126 Nam Cao and 15 Dinh Le Streets.

Vietnam Ancient War exhibit in New York

The expansive exhibition of artifacts from the land's historical cultures is on view at the Asia Society in New York.

Garuda with Naga Champa period, late 12th-13th century. Thap Mam site, Binh Dinh Province Stone. (National Museum of Vietnamese History)


Reporting from New York - "Arts of Ancient Viet Nam," the most ambitious exhibition of Vietnamese art yet to appear in the United States, is a show about meetings.

In room after room, magnificent objects on display tell a story about people -- how we encounter one another and change in the process.

That such meetings are sometimes bloody was an inescapable issue for the organizers of the show, on view at the Asia Society in New York.

For decades, Vietnam existed in the American mind not so much as a geographical place with its own history but rather, singularly, as a synonym for conflict.

And it was this association -- as Asia Society Director Vishakha Desai put it: "that Vietnam means war" -- that organizers wanted to challenge. "We wanted to create a new story," Desai said. Given the interwoven history of America and Vietnam, it is a point delicately made.

For one thing, Nancy Tingley, the show's heroically stubborn curator who worked more than 20 years to realize "Arts of Ancient Viet Nam," has mounted an exhibition that looks at a time well before the Battle of Hue, the massacre at My Lai and the fall of Saigon. This is a historical show that examines another kind of meeting between people: one built on trade and commerce.

One reason it took so long for the exhibition to be realized was that before 2003 Vietnam didn't have a law that would allow for the lending of museum objects. But the Vietnamese government eventually threw its support behind the exhibition and 10 museums in Vietnam have contributed objects, including the Museum of Vietnamese History in Ho Chi Minh City.

Another obstacle was the lack of diplomatic relations between Vietnam and the United States until 1995. "Politics got in the way for some years, but we've gotten beyond that," said Tingley, based in Northern California.

Although she acknowledges the initial difficulty of realizing the project, Tingley is less interested in making overt political statements and more engaged with the question of what these beautifully crafted objects can tell us about the various peoples who lived between the first millennium BC and the 18th century in what is now Vietnam.

"Trade is a lens through which to look at the cultures," Tingley said, adding that as art and objects spread through trade so do ideas.

Or as the general director of the Department of Cultural Heritage in Vietnam, Dang Van Bai, puts it in a foreword to the catalog: "Arts and culture have always provided a bridge to mutual understanding among the peoples of the world."

With economic assistance from other countries, notably France, which has its own history in the region, Vietnam continues to improve the state of its museums, Tingley said.

The show, which runs through May 2, is remarkable for its scale, scope and beauty. The more than 100 objects, which have never appeared together before in an exhibit (not even in Vietnam), span almost 2,000 years. Because the exhibit spans such a wide period and includes different cultures, it is hard to point to a defining Vietnamese aesthetic. Rather, each of the four cultures on display have borrowed iconography and expressions from different parts of the world.

Organized chronologically, the show begins with two contemporary early cultures, the Dong Son and the Sa Huynh, who lived, respectively, in the north and the central-south part of the country until the 2nd century AD.

Like many cultures that appear to us centuries after their demise, the Sa Huynh are best viewed through their burial objects -- in this case, large, upright clay jars that held the dead along with offerings such as weapons and pottery -- and objects such as Chinese mirrors found at Sa Huynh sites suggest that the culture was a center for trade and exchange.

The most impressive remnants from the Dong Son culture are the large bronze drums on display, intricately patterned with abstract bands and images of people, which, along with chicken-headed ceramics, reveal a strong Chinese influence.

The next room reveals a different people -- the Fu Nan, a civilization of city-states that existed in the Mekong Delta from the 1st to the 5th century AD.; to provide historical context, Fu Nan gold jewelry is presented alongside contemporaneous imported objects from Rome, China and India.

The Fu Nan and their trading partners had rich opportunities to exchange ideas and expressions because the monsoon winds kept the traders in foreign ports for four to six months at a time. But little is known about the Fu Nan people except that they were impressive seafarers who built 200-foot-long ships that had an ability to carry up to 700 people and could be used to export not just goods but also live rhinos and elephants.

Moving on, a visitor encounters an almost life-size wooden Buddha -- an incredible artifact, not just for its slender, Giacometti-like beauty but for the simple fact that this wooden statue dates from the 6th century, having survived almost intact -- and half-smiling -- in the bog of the Mekong Delta.

The Buddha's right hand is raised in abhaya mudra, symbolizing peace, and the belly shows a slight bulge, indicating the intake of breath, prana -- gestures that suggest the creator of the Buddha had been exposed to Indian Gupta sculpture.

A wide-eyed demon in a stone frieze on display in another room shows how the people who lived between the 5th and the 15th century in the coastal kingdoms of Champa, near Hoi An, were also influenced by Indian aesthetics. Early Cham inscriptions were done in Sanskrit, and awe-inspiring stone sculptures of the Hindu god Shiva also reveal the Indian influence. (During another encounter between cultures much later, U.S. bombers destroyed a significant Cham site at My Son.)

The final part of the show looks at trade and exchange in the period between the 16th and the 18th century in the port city of Hoi An, about 20 miles from Danang. Chinese porcelain, Japanese silver, cinnamon and gold were among the wares that were traded at Hoi An, and luxury goods that have later been found attest to the continued connection to China and India as well as the Middle East.

Most of the pieces in this part of the show come from the Cu Lao Cham shipwreck, discovered during the 1990s. Tingley speculates that at least part of the ship's cargo was destined for a Vietnamese man living in an Islamic country somewhere in Southeast Asia, so that he might have not only the kinds of ceramic that reminded him of his home but also something that fit his new culture.

Carbon dating suggests that the ship went down in the 15th century, and the remains of fruit found aboard suggest that it had set sail in late fall. The lateness of the expedition meant that the sailors likely encountered rough weather, possibly causing the ship to go down.

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Copyright © 2010, The Los Angeles Times

SGGP English Edition- Foreigners cycle Vietnam in 22 days

Foreigners cycle Vietnam in 22 days

Tourists are on a cycle tour through Vietnam (Photo: SGGP)
Twenty-eight European tourists on April 10 arrived on schedule at the central hill city of Da Lat in their journey through Vietnam.Twenty-seven French and one Dutch, aged 32 to 74, have been cycling through the country. They departed Hanoi on March 24 to begin their 22 day long tour. They are expected to end in Ho Chi Minh City on April 16. The cycle tourists have an excellent chance to view the scenery and understand the country’s culture and people.
The tour company Nam Long, based in Hanoi, launched the tour. As expected, the visitors will arrive at Phan Thiet on April 11.
By C. Hoan - Translated by Uyen Phuong

| Grand festival honours ethnic cultures - Grand festival honours ethnic cultures

Thousands of people from many different ethnic groups nationwide gathered at the Vietnam Ethnic Culture and Tourism Village in Son Tay, Hanoi, on August 18 for Vietnamese Ethnic Cultures Day, the first ever held in Vietnam.

The event, organized by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, started with gong performances by artists from the Central Highland province of Kontum and Cham dances by actresses from the southcentral province of Ninh Thuan.

The event, showing the many different cultures of the country’s 54 ethnic minorities, is expected to grow in popularity and become a regular major cultural event during the nation’s integration process.

A large cultural programme, including five chapters, took place at the Ethnic Culture and Tourism Village on the evening of April 19 with the attendance of ethnic groups from 33 provinces and cities nationwide.

Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung recently issued a decision marking April 19 as Vietnamese Ethnic Cultures Day.

Tet Vietnam

When: Mon, Jan 26th 8:00 am to Thu, Jan 29th 6:00 pmWhere: throughout Vietnam,
VN Holiday. Offices closed.
Click here …
... to learn more about TET customs in Vietnam.“Tet is the festival which epitomizes the identity of Vietnamese culture. Although the Lunar New Year is observed in all of East Asia influenced by Chinese civilisation, each country celebrates it in a way peculiar to that country by making it conform to its psyche and historico-geographical conditions. Many rites, festivities and practices of Vietnamese TET are quite distant variants of the Chinese model, and are even original creations which hark back to myths and legends of the pre-Chinese period which prevailed in an authentically Viet culture of the Bronze Age (first millenium B.C.) called the Red River Culture.”
... Symbols of TET in Vietnam.Kumquat trees about two or three feet tall are carefully selected and prominently displayed during Tet. To carefully choose a kumquat bush, the buyer must pay attention to the symmetrical shape, to the leaves and to the color and shape of the fruit. The bushes have been precisely pruned to display ripe deep orange fruits with smooth clear thin skin shining like little suns or gold coins on the first day of the lunar new year. Other fruits must still be green to ripen later. This represents the wish that wealth will come to you now and in the future. The leaves must be thick and dark green with some light green sprouts. The fruits represent the grandparents, the flowers represent parents, the buds represent children and the light green leaves represent grandchildren. The tree thus symbolizes many generations. Guests will caress the light green leaves about to sprout and compliment the discerning host who chose so carefully.
... for a list of Vietnamese and U.S. holidays
... to download Moon Menu, a small program to keep track of the phases of the moon.
... to learn about how the Lunar New Year is calculated from Ancient Worlds.
And here is a list of dates for future TET Lunar New Year’s day up to 2020.
Year of the…
Gregorian Calendar
Water Buffalo
Jan 26, 2009
Tiger
Feb 10, 2010
Cat
Feb 03, 2011
Dragon
Jan 23, 2012
Snake
Feb 10, 2013
Horse
Jan 31, 2014
Goat
Feb 19, 2015
Monkey
Feb 09, 2016
Rooster
Jan 28, 2017
Dog
Feb 16, 2018
Pig
Feb 05, 2019
Rat
Jan 25, 2020

Burning incense linked to respiratory cancers

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Burning incense may create a sweet scent, but regularly inhaling the smoke could put people at risk of cancers of the respiratory tract, researchers reported Monday.
In a study of more than 61,000 ethnic Chinese living in Singapore who were followed for up to 12 years, the investigators found a link between heavy incense use and various respiratory cancers.
The findings are published in the medical journal Cancer.
Incense has been used for millennia in many cultures' religious and spiritual ceremonies. In Asia, people commonly burn incense in their homes -- a practice that is becoming more popular in Western countries as well.
Incense is usually derived from fragrant plant materials, like tree bark, resins, roots, flowers and essential oils. Past research has found that burning these materials can produce potentially cancer-causing substances, including benzene and polyaromatic hydrocarbons.
However, no studies until now had linked the practice of burning incense to an increased cancer risk over time, according to the researchers, led by Dr. Jeppe T. Friborg of the Statens Serum Institute in Copenhagen.
For their study, the researchers followed 61,320 Singapore Chinese men and women between the ages of 45 and 74 from the Hokkien or Cantonese dialect group. All of the subjects were cancer-free at the outset.
Participants reported on their typical incense use, including how often they burned it in their homes and for how long -- only at night, for instance, or all day and night.
Over the next 12 years, 325 men and women developed cancer of the upper respiratory tract, such as nasal, oral or throat cancer. Another 821 developed lung cancer. Continued...


more info-->>Burning incense linked to respiratory cancers Health Reuters