Regulations promulgated for art performances

Authorities have promulgated regulations on art performances, organizing of beauty, fashion and modeling contests, and releasing of music CD’s and videos of art events.

Accordingly, organizations and individuals will be strictly banned from holding art performances if their contents are far removed from acceptable Vietnamese habits, customs and traditional culture.

Using recordings instead of actual voice and instrument sounds, wearing scanty clothes, and false advertising will face tough penalties.

Organizers of art performances, beauty, fashion and modeling contests will have to submit reports of their contents to the local department of culture, sports and tourism, at least five days before the event.

National beauty pageants are held two times a year, provincial-level beauty pageants are held only once a year, and regional, local and department beauty contests are held not more than three times a year.

Hanoi rock-opera-orchestra gig

Giai dieu dam me (Inspiring melody) which combines opera, rock and an orchestra will be held at 8 p.m. on October 26 at Youth Theater, 11 Ngo Thi Nham Street in Hanoi.

Violinist Anh Tu will perform Four Seasons and Hungary Dance together with Kickoff rock band who consist of Duc Long, Quang Minh, Truong Chinh, Hai Nam, Hai Bang, and Manh Linh, and a string orchestra.

Opera artist Viet Dung together with rocker Hoai Nam will perform some romantic pieces like “Time to say goodbye”, “Nocture” and some extracts from the “La traviata”, “Phantom of the opera” and “Romeo and Juliet” in opera-rock style.

Moreover, violinist Anh Tu, pianist Ngoc Linh and young artists of the string orchestra will contribute some instrumental works to the audience.

According to organizers, all proceeds will be donated to poor children in the mountainous Sung Do Commune of Van Chan District of Yen Bai Province.

Tickets are priced from VND100,000 to VND800,000.

For further information, contact 0912 64 9009 or 0912 25 9091.

Test your IQ with Puku pub quiz

The weekly Pub Quiz So You Think You're a Wise Guy? hosted by Puku Cafe&Bar will continue next Tuesday, October 16, at 16 Tong Duy Tan Street.

This event will be a fun night of general knowledge, trivia and "special category" questions along with a table-top brain teaser to test your IQ.

The evening will start at 7.30pm and usually ends before 10pm. Entry is free, with prizes for the winning team and special "spot" prizes along the way.

Vietnam-RoK Film Festival to open in Hanoi, HCM City

Ten most popular films from the Republic of Korea (RoK) depicting the country’s land and people will be screened at the Vietnam-RoK Film Festival in Hanoi from October 18-24 and Ho Chi Minh from December 6-8.

The festival will start with director Choo Chang Min’s blockbuster Masquarade (starring Lee Byung-hun) at Hanoi’s Megastar Vincom Towers on October 18.

Other popular films include Always (starring So-Ji Sub), Little Black Dress (Yoon Eun-Hye), As One (Ha Ji-won) and Love on Air (Lee Min-Jung and Lee Jung-Jin).

The festival’s ambassadors will be Cha Ye-Ryeon from the RoK and Johnny Tri Nguyen from Vietnam.

The event is part of the 2012 Vietnam-RoK Friendship Year to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the two countries’ diplomatic ties.

In addition, there will be a friendship golf tournament, a Vietnam-RoK concert, a K-Pop concert, a friendship walk, a photo exhibition on Vietnam-RoK friendship and the RoK singing contest in the southern province of Binh Duong and Ho Chi Minh City in nearly three months from October to December.

The highlight of the 2012 Asia Super Showcase in Vietnam will be the performance of RoK famous band Super Junior at the Saigon Exhibition and Convention Centre (SECC) and the Vietnam-RoK friendship gala diner in Ho Chi Minh City on December 21.

Friends group offers Japanese tour

An excursion to the Thanh Chuong Viet Palace, a private museum of Vietnamese architecture in suburban Ha Noi, will be held by Friends of Viet Nam Heritage (FVH) on Saturday.

The tour, conducted in English, will start at 8.30am and last for more than five hours. To register, contact Helen at helenshuntley@yahoo.com. Meet outside the Hanoi Sofitel Plaza Hotel at 1 Thanh Nien Road.

On Thursday, October 18, FVH will host a tour of Lan Ong Street in the Old Quarter, home to several traditional herbal medicine shops.

The two-hour tour, conducted in Japanese, will start at 9.30am. Contact Miho at herijapan@yahoo.co.jp. Meet in front of Little Hanoi Restaurant at the corner of Hang Gai and Luong Van Can.

FVH is a group of foreigners living in Ha Noi who work on a volunteer basis to promote and preserve Vietnamese cultural and historical heritage.

Promotion spotlights northern ethnic cuisine

Most food connoisseurs here know that northern Vietnamese cuisine differs markedly from the food in other two regions, Central and South. But according to Olivier Piganiol, executive chef of Sofitel Legend Metropole Hanoi, the country also has a fourth regional cuisine: that of ethnic minorities.

In this cuisine, mountain herbs and spices such as talauma, wild pepper, cinnamon, and star anise create unusual flavours.

An on-going promotion spotlighting these ethnic delicacies is currently taking place at the hotel's Spices Garden restaurant, offering food lovers a chance to savour dishes such as roasted suckling pig with talauma, honey-grilled goat in bamboo tubes, braised black chicken with taro, and steamed shrimp stuffed with fresh aromatic mushrooms.

Other exotic ingredients include smoked mushrooms, fresh bamboo sprouts, river trout, and hill rice.

The promotion, available as an a la carte dinner, runs until October 26. Prices start at VND210,000++/dish.

Jazz accordion quartet to play at IDECAF

The Ha Noi-based Swing Quartet will present a jazz-accordion concert featuring swing tunes by well-known French composers Gus Viseur, Marcel Azzola and Richard Galliano at the Institute of Cultural Exchange with France (IDECAF) tomorrow.

Established in 2010, the quartet includes accordionist Thibault Dille, winner of the Toots Thielemans Jazz Award 2010 in Brussels, pianist Nguyen Tien Manh, contrabass player Christophe Hache and percussionist Nguyen Hung Cuong.

The show will start at 8pm at 31 Thai Van Lung Street in District 1. Entrance fee is VND100,000, with 50 per cent discount for students.

Scratch shopping itch at Youth Flea Market

The HCM City Youth Cultural House will host a Youth Flea Market on Saturday, that will feature handmade goods, paintings and recycled products as well as traditional music and food and drinks.

The event, which will be held regularly on the first Saturday of every month, will showcase more then 100 booths manned by students from the city's universities.

The market will be open from 1pm-10pm at 4 Pham Ngoc Thach Street in District 1.

Body art, music show opens at Saigon Outcast

A body-art show with jazz and pop music will be held tomorrow at Saigon Outcast in District 2.

The show features tattoo and body artist David Phuong, make-up artist Linh Tran, jazz vocalist Mariedel Mapile, DJs Samurai and Ben Boniface and models Yokusou Gyo and Hannah Lambie.

The event begins at 6pm at 188/1 Nguyen Van Huong Street in Thao Dien Ward.

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