Vietnamese awarded at Miss ASEAN contest

Vietnamese contestant Dong Thanh Vy finished third in the finals of the South East Asian’s beauty pageant which concluded in Thailand on December 21.

The organisers of the competition said Thanh Vy’s confidence and beauty shone out above  her rivals, securing her victory and a place in the top three.  

Vietnam sent two representatives to the pageant: Pham Huong, F-Idol 2011 winner, and Dong Thanh Vy, an accounting student.  

Last year, Vietnamese beauty Dieu Han was crowned at the contest.

Miss ASEAN 2013 was a girl named Amande Leong Li Ting from Singapore, and the first runner up was Amelia Thripura Henderson from Malaysia.

The glitzy final was recorded on Fashion TV and is expected to be broadcast later this year.

Traditional Japanese culture on display in Hanoi

Hanoi’s Vietnam National Museum of History will presentan exhibition of traditional Japanese culture and history from January 16 to March 9, 2014.

The exhibition includes 70 artifacts covering ancient Japanese pottery, Japanese Buddhist sculpture, the Japanese war against Mongol invasion, and Samurai traditions.

Examples of Yayoi Period pottery, Kamanura Period hyogo-gusari-tachisttyle sword mounting, and Edo Period Gusokuarmour are particular highlights.

Museum visitors will also have the chance to examine relics from early Vietnamese-Japanese trade exchanges on loan from the Kyushu National Museum.

The exhibition is collaboration between the Vietnam National History Museum, the General Department of Japanese Culture, and the Kyushu National Museum.

Hanoi hosts Fashion Week Spring Summer 2013

Vietnam Fashion Week Spring Summer 2013 will take place at Vietnam Television’s S14 film studio in Hanoi from December 22–25.

The fashion show will feature the latest collections from 23 Vietnamese designers, including the final Vietnam Design Star Contest trio of Tang Thanh Cong, Quang Nhat, and Ha Duy.

A “Ready To Wear” night and a “Haute Couture” night are two of the week’s highlights.

Viet Thang Textile Company will debut creative collections with designs from Van Hien, Van Khoa, Bich Ha, and Hong Vuong.

Charming Ly will present a collection inspired by the calla lily, Duc Hai will showcase “Alice Dream”, Vo Cong Khanh will unveil the new season’s street sport style, and Minh Hanh will introduce her most birdsong-inspired embroidery designs.

Many of the fashion industry’s leading models—such as Ngoc Han, Hoang Anh, Nguyen Thi Loan, Vuong Thu Phuong, Lan Khue, My Van, Mai Giang, and Phuoc Hanh—are expected to grace catwalks during the week.

Beethoven Symphony No. 9 concert prepares for debut

The Hanoi Opera House will host performances of Beethoven’s famous Symphony No. 9 on December 26 and 27, marking the composer’s 250th birthday and encouraging Northeast Asian cultural exchanges.

The concert, under the baton of Japanese conductor Honna Tetsuji, will feature the Republic of Korea’s alto vocalist Soo Yun Chung, Taiwanese tenor Claude Lin, and Vietnamese soprano Ha Pham Thang Long.

The orchestra combines soloists with members of Vietnamese orchestras and the Japanese Ashikaga City Orchestra.

The series of Symphony No. 9 performances will tour, Japan, the Republic of Korea, and Taiwan and China from its Vietnamese debut until 2020.

Da Lat prepares for flower festival

Flower villages in the Central Highland resort city of Da Lat are putting the finishing touches to the fifth Da Lat Flower Festival due to take place in a couple of days.

The festival is part of a week-long cultural and tourism event to mark Da Lat’s 120th anniversary and announce the 2014 Tourism Year in the Central Highlands.

Coming to Da Lat at this time of year, visitors have the chance to see hundreds of flower varieties in full bloom, sample distinctive foods, and enjoy fresh air in the Central Highlands.

Hundreds of baskets of flowers and ornamental plants will be arranged around major tourist attractions in the city such as Xuan Huong Lake, Prenn Waterfall, Le Dai Hanh street, and Ong Dao bridge.

In Ha Dong flower village, farmers are fine-tuning flower-shaped artworks made of orchids, chrysanthemums, anthuriums and some other varieties.

Vu Dung, a local villager, said, “We are trimming flowers to ensure they are blossoming during the festival.”

Thai Phien flower village which supplies nearly 1 billion flowers annually has reserved 40ha of land to grow chrysanthemum, orchids, lily, salem and carnations.

Meanwhile, Van Thanh flower village has completed a flower-decorated welcome gate and hundreds of flower beds and ornamental plants along the roadside.

The flower festival offers a good chance for the resort city to promote the image of the most famous flower locality in Vietnam, introduce its potential for growing flowers and seek partnerships.

Da Lat will introduce visitors to the latest technology it has adopted in agricultural production. The city has developed two farming models of Ngoc Linh Ginseng – the most valuable herb in Vietnam at present, and 30 organic strawberry and super sweet tomato farming models.

 Catholic parish anticipates joyful holiday

Bird's eye view: Xuan Kien Commune Party Secretary Bui Ngoc Anh (right) at the top of Thanh Danh Church in neighbouring Xuan Tien Commune, where residents celebrate both Christmas and Tet. — VNS Photo Truong Vi

Despite an often tumultuous history, Vietnamese Catholics have held onto their sacred traditions, particularly in this heartland of the Catholic faith, where many residents have followed Christianity for years. Nguyen My Ha reports.

It was a foggy morning when we set out for the Kien Lao parish in Nam Dinh Province.

Along the road, lines of longan trees with their almost-perfectly round canopies looked like giant mistletoes hanging above the white fog.

After nearly two hours, the imposing new dome of an unmistakably brand new Catholic Church held our attention. We had arrived Kien Lao, one of the most populated parishes in the Bui Chu Catholic Diocese.

Ushering us in via a private entrance to the church, the Party Secretary of the Xuan Kien Commune, Bui Ngoc Anh said, "Our commune has a small number of Catholics - just 200 households of nearly 10,000 members. But in our neighbouring commune, Xuan Tien, 12,000 of 15,000 residents are Catholics."

He took us to a reception room that stood separate from the newly built Thanh Danh (St Jean) Church, work on which was still unfinished. It was undergoing the final decorating touches.

"You can't go in there now, because you're a woman," Dinh The Phiet, 67, the church's priest, told me firmly.

"Wow," I thought to myself, "I did not expect to be discriminated against straight to my face."

I don't know if he saw my surprise, but he explained right away, "We are having the woodwork inside the church painted with raw lacquer. The thing with lacquer is, if you go in there now, your face will swell up as big as a basket. It's not as bad for men."

Made from the resin of a lacquer tree, lacquer protects wood better than any industrially-manufactured chemical product.

The original St Jean Church was a brick and wood structure that stood for more than 100 years. It was the pride of the local Catholic community for more than 100 years and home to nearly five thousand people every mass, though it could only seat 500 people at a time. Most of the devout found themselves sitting outside the church for Sunday mass.

"The old church was dissembled in 2003, sold for VND50 million," Phiet said. That was worth about US$20,000 then. That was the price for a priceless historic and architectural gem!

But while we bemoaned the loss and told them that their old church was a treasure, everyone we spoke to were enthusiastic about the new structure, work on which began in 2004 and lasted five years.

"It was becoming too small for us. We had to bend ourselves going in and out," Phiet said, a bit pensive now.

All that is left of the old church is a 20x30cm faded colour photograph hung on the wall. Memories of a turbulent past that the old church witnessed had not faded, though.

Reflecting on the changes, Anh said: "The party secretaries in previous times did not visit the ministry, but we do now. We bring some flowers and gifts to the ministry, and talk with the priest every important Catholic events."

Roman Catholicism first came to Viet Nam through missionaries in the 16th century. It was first rejected by the Royal Court as it was unfamiliar to a mostly Buddhist country that also adhered to the teachings of Confucius.

It was also alien to the majority of Vietnamese until one of the missionaries, Pigneau de Behaine, a French Catholic priest called Ba Da Loc in Vietnamese, became famous for his instrumental role in Nguyen Anh becoming Emperor Gia Long, founder of the last monarchy of Viet Nam that reigned for two centuries.

The Nguyen Dynasty was in power when the country became a French colony. As France promoted Catholicism, the Roman Catholic Church was able to establish its presence in the country.

When the August Revolution broke out in 1945, the Communist Party of Viet Nam was leading the struggle to throw off the yoke of colonialism. After nine years, Viet Nam's historic victory in the battle of Dien Bien Phu put an end to French rule.

Later, as part of the Geneva Agreement, a large number of Catholics from the North went South, and resistance fighters moved from the South to North.

These events were followed by the American War that raged for 21 more years till the Vietnamese fight for independence was won, the country was reunited and peace restored.

Once the war ended, "the number of christened people has been increasing steadily," said Dinh Tan Viet, a Catholic entrepreneur, who donated more than 1,250 taels of gold for building the new St. Jean church.

Born to a family that has been Catholic for seven generations, Viet's weath comes from manufacturing farming machinery like rice husking machines.

"We export to China and some African countries and employ 100 workers, mostly high school graduates," he said.

Viet's generosity has not been confined to the church.

Trinh Quy Nghi, 69, a non-Catholic, said Viet had donated VND500 million ($25,000) to build a neighbouring pagoda and built a medical clinic in Xuan Tien Commune that cost him VND2.7 billion ($128,000).

Such actions have endeared Viet and the Catholics to the local community.

"In our two communes here," said Dinh Van Thinh, a demobilised soldier who fought in Laos and the battle of Ban Me Thuot in 1975, "Catholic affairs have only prospered since I returned to civil life in 1985."

Attesting to Thinh's statement are as many as 13 churches that have sprung up in the two communes with 25,000 residents.

Thinh, who also hails from family that has been Catholic for seven generations, also spoke of the increased recognition that the community has been enjoying of late.

"When Chairman of the Viet Nam Fartherland Front Nguyen Thien Nhan and Chairman of the Viet Nam Fatherland Front came here to visit us last month, everyone went out to greet him.

"It was a big festive day for our community."

And the biggest festive day for the Catholic community nears, residents of the Kien Lao parish are putting aside their daily life struggles and getting ready to have the time of their lives.

It has been a few tough years for carpenter and wood shop owner Giuse Trinh Ngoc Tien. "Our business earnings have been only half of last year's," he said. "But Christmas is coming, and it's going to be happy."

His wife Maria Nguyen thi Khuyen, who converted to Catholicism after she got married, echoed her husband, "It's going to be very merry and happy."

Khuyen has been going to sing in the church choir three times a week and she sings at mass every Sunday.

"On the Eve of Christmas, people in our lane, 50 families or more, set up tables on the street with colourful lighting and the young people build caves with mangers in almost every household.

"It's going to be very joyful and so much fun."

Asked if they had a special treat for the occasion, like a yule log, a gingerbread house or a stuffed goose, Khuyen shook her head.

"No, the feast is going to be all Vietnamese food, like a wedding.

"Come and see for yourself," she said.

Southern music fights to stay hip

After don ca tai tu (southern amateur singing) was recognised as a UNESCO intangible cultural heritage icon, artists, cultural managers and researchers felt pressured to protect and develop this music.

Phan Nhut Dung, who teaches music at HCM City Theatre and Cinema University and is also chairman of Southern Folk Music and Renovated Opera Club at the city's Labour Palace, said that the duty of all Vietnamese people, especially teachers of the arts, has become more important since UNESCO listed the folk music as being part of the nation's intangible heritage.

"We have to do something to preserve the art, not by protecting it in museum," he said.

Dung also said that, presently, all clubs in the city had a lack of folk instrument players because club members spend short periods learning how to play instruments. Rather, they tend to learn more popular modern instruments, such as the guitar, he said.

Besides, students, who study at the college, often return to the provinces after graduating to work as cultural workers at provincial culture centres, where there are few occasions to practise the art. They even have to quit the arts to seek jobs that pay better.

In HCM City, which hosts 118 clubs of don ca tai tu with 1,000 artists, there remains a lack of real locations for art fans, he noted.

"Many festivals and contests are organised throughout the year," he said. "But they do not appear to be pure movements, and have not deeply encouraged folk music fans."

"Preserving the art should run parallel with developing it according to the present time, without losing old traditional features," he said. "Developing the music on stage is a good way for people to understand it."

He noted that the artists should play and sing well enough so that when audiences hear the sounds of dan bau (monochord) and dan kim or dan nguyet (two-stringed moon lute), they easily remember its origins and traditions.

According to Le Van Loc, deputy director of HCM City's Culture Centre, the city plans to organise six don ca tai tu training classes next year for new fans in the city as well as to enhance the capabilities of existing club members.

The local culture, tourism and sports department will continue to organise the Hoa Sen Vang (Golden Lotus) contest to seek new don ca tai tu talent. The sector will provide financial support of VND2-3 million (US$90-140) per month to artists in need to improve their lives as well as encourage them to whole-heartedly undertake training.

"Next year, the department will co-ordinate with the local training sector to introduce the art into schools," Loc said.

"The local authorities will try their best to increase the number and quality of both clubs and artists in the city to develop a stable foundation for the art in the near future," he stated.

Next April, the first-ever Don Ca Tai Tu Festival will be organised in the southern province of Bac Lieu and is expected to attract hundreds of professional and amateur artists from 21 southern cities and provinces, especially those in the Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta region, where the art form is popular.

New comedy introduces road trip genre to VN

The most-anticipated movie before the end of the year, Teo Em, hit the big screen nationwide yesterday.

The road comedy, not recommended for viewers under 16, tells the story of Ti Anh (played by Johnny Tri Nguyen) and Teo Em (played by Thai Hoa) – half-brothers with contrasting personalities. The movie follows their adventures when they travel to Sa Dec township to salvage Ti Anh's love affair.

Their differences and conflicts create contradictory situations throughout their journey. Road comedies, a genre popular in Hollywood, is new to filmmakers in Viet Nam.

The motion picture also marks the "reunion" of director Charlie Nguyen and the famous comedian Thai Hoa. They had earlier teamed up for a series of comedic box-office hits such as De Mai Tinh (Fool for Love), Long Ruoi and Cuoi Ngay Keo Lo (Love Puzzle).

Usually, Vietnamese movies are released during the Tet holidays (Lunar New Year), which are usually celebrated towards the end of January and in early February to get better returns at the box-office. This routine has changed as Vietnamese movies are now screened all year round, competing with Hollywood blockbusters.

Besides Teo Em, Than Tuong (Idol), featuring Vietnamese movie stars, will also be released during the Christmas season.

Cao lau noodles gain recognition

The speciality cao lau noodle of Hoi An ancient town in the central province of Quang Nam has been recognised as an Asian Record dish by the Asian Records Organisation.

Earlier, the profile of the speciality was completed and submitted to the organisation by the Viet Nam Record Book Centre (Vietking) in September.

A foremost traditional Hoi An food, the dish consists of square noodles topped with pork slices, spice vegetables, bean sprouts and crispy rice crac.

After mi Quang (Quang noodle), cao lau noodle is the second speciality of Quang Nam to be recognised by the Asian Records Organisation.

Comedy show give fresh take on society

More than 50 comedians and actors across the country will appear on a TV show Hoi Ngo Danh Hai (Gathering of Comedians) to entertain audiences during Christmas and Tet (Lunar New Year) holidays.

The show, consisting of 11 episodes, will include favourite pop stars and dancers.

The first episode, which will air on HCM City Television's HTV7 tonight, will present several short plays, with one being about a love triangle and another about an actress who makes many commercials. Actors Hoai Linh, Dinh Toan and Le Khanh will be featured.

Nguyen Hai, project manager of Dong Tay Promotions, one of the organisers, said it wanted to use comedy to reflect social problems in show business as well modern life.

The show will be broadcast at 9 pm on HTV7 every Saturday.

Gloomy year for HCM City publishers

The number of books published this year in HCM City reduced by almost half, Tuoi Tre (The Youth) newspaper reported.

City-based publishers Tre (Young), Van Hoa-Van Nghe (Literature and Art-Culture), and Tong Hop (General) told a conference on Wednesday that they published a total of 3,197 titles this year. Their turnover was also down by seven per cent.

Though reprinted titles were up seven per cent, the number of copies fell by 35 per cent. The number of copies of original Vietnamese titles and translations fell by nine and three per cent.

Young publishing house, the most successful this year, reported marginally higher profits though turnover shrank by 3 per cent.

An executive from Fahasa, a joint stock book distribution company, said sales of literature and reference books fell this year due to competition from e-books, and this would be a continuing trend.

Ha Noi painters show perfect strokes

Paintings on traditional materials like lacquer, silk, and do paper by eight Ha Noi artists are on display at the HCM City Fine Arts Museum.

Gio Song Hong (Wind from the Red River), which opened yesterday, showcases 90 works featuring landscapes, lifestyles, and beautiful women from the Hong (Red) River Delta.

Le Thi Hoan, the oldest of the eight artists, said the exhibition sought to bring images of peaceful and idyllic villages and beautiful ethnic women from the north.

Her own preferred materials are lacquer and water colour on silk and bright colours like red, blue, and green, especially to depict women in the northern mountains – like in Nguoi Dan Ba va Ruong Bac Thang (Woman in Terraced Rice Field) and Sau Buoi Le Nha Tho (After a Church Meeting).

The 68-year-old has brought eight lacquers and four watercolour on silk works.

A graduate of the Viet Nam Fine Arts University, she has held several solo and group exhibitions in Viet Nam and South Korea.

Hoang Nam Thai has on display 16 lacquer engraving and oil on canvas paintings.

His works feature landscapes and life in villages, especially in the mountainous province of Ha Giang.

His works include Xuong Cho Ngay Xuan (Going to the Market in Spring), and Mien Duyen Hai (Coastal Region).

Thai, 59, a graduate of the Viet Nam Fine Arts University, has also held several exhibitions in Viet Nam and countries like Japan and France.

His paintings are displayed in many museums in Viet Nam and the US, and he has won many national and international prizes.

The exhibition also features works by Pham Thi Nghia, Ngo Thanh Nhan, Pham Quang Viet, Nguyen Van Tuan, Phi Manh Tan, and Nguyen Xuan Luc.

Most of them are graduates of the Ha Noi University of Industrial Fine Arts.

The exhibition at 97A Pho Duc Chinh Street, District 1, will remain open until January 5.

Teo Em hits the big screen

The most-anticipated movie before the end of the year, Teo Em, hits the big screen nationwide today.

The road comedy, not recommended for viewers under 16, tells the story of Ti Anh (played by Johnny Tri Nguyen) and Teo Em (played by Thai Hoa) – half-brothers with contrasting personalities. The movie follows their adventures when they travel to Sa Dec township to salvage Ti Anh's love affair.

Their differences and conflicts create contradictory situations throughout their journey. Road comedies, a genre popular in Hollywood, is new to filmmakers in Viet Nam.

The motion picture also marks the "reunion" of director Charlie Nguyen and the famous comedian Thai Hoa. They had earlier teamed up for a series of comedic box-office hits such as De Mai Tinh (Fool for Love), Long Ruoi and Cuoi Ngay Keo Lo (Love Puzzle).

Usually, Vietnamese movies are released during the Tet holidays (Lunar New Year), which are usually celebrated towards the end of January and in early February to get better returns at the box-office. This routine has changed as Vietnamese movies are now screened all year round, competing with Hollywood blockbusters.

Besides Teo Em, Than Tuong (Idol), featuring Vietnamese movie stars, will also be released during the Christmas season.