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For the first time, these girls had the chance to improve their knowledge and skills with the help of foreign professionals.
While staying there, the Vietnamese candidates are expected to learn more about the working environment of international professional models.
The 13th episode of ‘Vietnam’s Next Top Model’ series will be aired on national channel VTV3 at 8pm on January 1, 2012.
Lan Phien-Bao Quyen duet to perform in town
A piano show called ‘Lan Phien and Bao Quyen – Piano Recital” is set to take place at the concert hall of HCMC Conservatory of Music at 8 p.m. on December 30.
The event will feature talented pianists Lan Phien and Bao Quyen who will perform works by world’s famous musicians Scarlatti, Beethoven, Liszt, Chopin and Mozart, together with the symphony orchestra of the HCMC Conservatory of Music under the baton of conductor Tran Vuong Thach.
Born in 1995 in Wiesbaden, Germany, Lan Phien started to play piano at age 6 and is studying at Frankfurt College of Music and Performing Arts with Pro. Irina Edelstein. She has won first prizes at the piano contest Willy Bissing – Hanau and the contest ‘Jugend musiziert’ in Frankfurt. She has been invited to perform at Festpiel Merkenburg – Vorpommern and Pheingau Musik Festival under the baton of conductor Wojciech Raski.
Bao Quyen, born in 1994, has studied at Vietnam Institute of Music.
Tickets are priced at VND200,000 and available at the Conservatory of Music, 112 Nguyen Du Street in HCMC’s District 1.
Bellydance and circus to entertain New Year revelers
New Year revelers in Hanoi will have the opportunity to see a special show featuring a combination of bellydance and circus on December 31 at the Central Circus Theater.
The “Welcoming New Year 2012 – A fanciful night” program will feature professional belly-dancers from LifeArt Studio and young circus performers from the Vietnam Circus Federation, says a Lao Dong report.
The Central Circus Theater is located 67-69 Tran Nhan Tong Street, Hanoi.
Fourteen artists showcase their works
Fourteen artists on Monday began an exhibition of their works at the Applied Arts Gallery in HCMC Fine Arts University to celebrate the New Year.
The show displays 35 artworks made of oil on canvas, silk, acrylic and lacquer, which are about beautiful landscapes, the beauty of Vietnamese women in portrait, hidden corners of daily life, and abstract lines and settings. They may make viewers think about implications about social issues and human fates.
The show runs till January 2 at the gallery, 5 Phan Dang Luu Street, Binh Thanh District.
RoK provides 3.5 mln USD for Hue master plan
A RoK-funded project to improve the master plan for Hue city is underway in the central province of Thua Thien-Hue, said an official.
Jointly launched by the Hue municipal People’s Committee and the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA), the project will run until July, 2013 at a total cost of 3.75 million USD. Of this, 3.5 million USD was funded by KOICA, which were channeled directly to Republic of Korea partners participating in carrying out the project.
The project aims to review the current master plan of Hue city, survey areas targeted for expansion, analyse the orientation for Hue’s development in the future and adjust the master plan for Hue city until 2030 and the vision towards 2050, to facilitate the city’s socio-economic development.
It will also contribute to promoting the two countries’ cooperation in the fields of planning and urban development in Vietnam through the exchange of knowledge and experience to Vietnamese experts.
Hanoi's new plan for flower street draws criticism
On Monday Hanoi’s People’s Committee approved a new plan to move all flowers and decorations for the New Year’s celebration festival to the sidewalks along Dinh Tien Hoang Street and around Hoan Kiem Lake, instead of on the roadway, as originally planned.
Titled “Rendezvous of Streets and Flowers,” the festival was expected to be organized on the area’s roads, with contributions from artisans from around the nation.
Also according to the new plan, vehicles will be allowed to use Dinh Tien Hoang Street during peak hours in order to avoid traffic jams. Previously, motorists were going to be banned from the road.
The street will only be converted into a pedestrian path on December 30th, the festival’s open date.
However, the new plan has met resistance from insiders.
Nguyen Manh Hung, an artisan, said it will be harder for spectators to view the flowers due to the narrow sidewalks.
“Since the sidewalks are narrow, we will have to recalculate the height of trees and the scale of decoration designs,” Hung said.
The festival’s organizing board also complained that it will be difficult for them to work if vehicles are allowed to travel during peak hours.
Responding to such complaints, the Hanoi committee said the new plan will offer more space for spectators to walk on the roadways during the festival, while not interfering with daily traffic on Dinh Tien Hoang Street.
“We decided to move the decoration to the sidewalks based on the majority’s opinion. If this year’s festival encounters problems, we’ll fix them next year,” Nguyen Khac Loi, deputy director of the Hanoi 's Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism said.
The festival, which will run until January 2nd, aims to entertain people, embellish the capital, promote tourism, and honor the country's heritage sites.
“Little Frog” dazzles Vietnam’s Got Talent
Eight-year old Nguyen Hoang Anh displayed his great talent singing the folksong “Chu Ech Con” (The Little Frog), and imitating the dance style of the king of pop, Michael Jackson, on the Vietnam’s Got Talent TV show.
The third grade student from Dinh Tien Hoang primary school in Haiphong city has qualified for the first round of the show and is now hoping to continue further.
The show’s jury panel includes artist Thanh Loc, former model Thuy Hanh and well-known musician Huy Tuan.
This is the second time the traditional folksong “Chu Ech Con” has been performed in a new style. Previously, Italy’s RAI TV channel broadcast a marvelous performance by a Vietnamese girl, Le Nguyen Huong Tra, who joined international friends in singing the song at the Zecchino d’Oro music festival in 2003.
Huong Tra, also eight years old at the time, sang the song in both Italian and Vietnamese to great applause from the audience.
Gardeners set for Tet flower demand
As the Lunar New Year draws near, garden artisans in Cho Lach (Ben Tre) are speeding up work on their signature products, demand for which always surges around this time of the year, Saigon Tiep Thi Newspaper reported last week.
For many years now, the area has been known for producing large-scale bonsai trees, which are grown and pruned into the shapes of Asian holy animals (dragon, phoenix, turtle and qilin), or others in the 12 Chinese Zodiacs.
As elsewhere in East Asia, Vietnamese believe that decorating their houses with trees and flowers which have lucky names (Phat Tai or Good Fortune), or shapes of powerful symbols like a dragon, will bring luck in the new year.
As next year will be the Year of Dragon according to the traditional calendar, Nguyen Van Cong, a local artisan, said he was in the process of finishing 30 dragon-shaped bonsais out of the more than 100 orders he received for the high season.
Standing out from the rest was a pair of 54-meter long bonsai which Cong has been working on for more than half a year now.
The pair is just as impressive as another pair he produced for the Da Lat Flower Festival in 2009, he recalled, which was later put on display during celebrations for the 1,000-year Anniversary of Thang Long – Hanoi, in 2010.
According to the artisan, he had to put together 40 separate trees with enormous help from his trained co-workers to make the final products. “The type of tree that is best for pruning and grafting into large animal shapes is the Ficus stricta [or cay si in Vietnamese],” the experienced Cong said.
He has also made bonsai trees featuring pagoda or house shapes as decorations for many resorts and tourist destinations; however the most popular order this year was dragon-like bonsais in different positions.
According to a local, Cong’s workshop is well known in the area for putting out bonsai products of the largest size, variety, and artistic quality.
Bui Thanh Liem, head of the Agricultural and Rural Development Department of Cho Lanh District, said artisans like Cong provide more than 10 million bonsai products for the market every year, 50 percent of which are sold during the New Year season.
Most of the orders these gardeners have received are also dragon-shaped bonsais, he said, as many believe the dragon is a holy symbol which can bring luck and good fortune to the household.
Ngo Tuan Kiet, another artisan, said he has delivered more than 30 pairs of the mythical animals, each of which is 5 – 7 meters in length, to his customers who placed their orders in the beginning of the year.
He is now making a large pair that is 12 meters long. Kiet said that although demand for the products is rising, the price for production still remains stable.
A pair of bonsai trees that are 5 – 7 meters long costs VND 14 – 17 million each, he said.
A special Tet cultural event at Long Thuan garden house
A special cultural event titled “Flavor of Vietnamese Lunar New Year” will be held at the Long Thuan garden house in District 9 in Ho Chi Minh City on January 7.
Tet Lunar New Year is the biggest and most important traditional festival in the country. It is a time of great joy and family reunion, a time to honor ancestors, express filial piety and spread the message of love to all humanity.
The “Flavor of Vietnamese Lunar New Year” program is expected to bring joy to participants, especially the youth and children, during the festive Tet season with a bundle of exciting cultural activities.
Visitors will have a chance to take part in a talk on Tet and the ethics and spirituality of the custom of welcoming Lunar New Year in the country by historian Nguyen Khac Thuan and psychologist Ly Thi Mai.
A traditional Vietnamese Tet New Year dinner menu with delicious dishes and desserts will lure gastronomes.
Visitors will also enjoy and can take part in calligraphy demonstrations, drawing of New Year greeting cards, Banh Chung (Vietnamese traditional glutinous rice cake) baking, watermelon carving and creating ‘to he’ (traditional toy figurines made from glutinous rice powder and shaped into tiny figures of dragons, roses, animals, people).
The event also includes exhibitions of ao dai and Dong Ho wood-engraved paintings, performances of martial arts and kylin and a lion dance, besides various folk games.
Entry tickets are priced at VND500,000 for an adult and VND300,000 for children under 10.
Visitors can register for use of transport provided by the organizer, the Si Hoang Company, at VND80,000 for a return ticket and free of charge for children under 5.
Participants can contact Ms.Le, cell phone number: 0916 726 2012 or email: caothile@gmail.com for further information.
Well-known local private galleries to be closed
Two well-known private galleries in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City have announced a halt to their operations by the end of this year for private reasons, disappointing both artists and art fans in the two cities.
Painter Le Thiet Cuong’s gallery at 39 Ly Quoc Su Street in Hanoi will be closed, since the owner wants to save his time for his personal art projects.
A farewell exhibition titled “Minh” (Myself), featuring Cuong’s works, has begun and will run until December 30th, the official closing date.
After five years of operation, Cuong’s gallery has held more than 30 free exhibitions for local painters.
Also, early this month, painter Tran Thi Thu Ha, owner of Tu Do Gallery at 53 Ho Tung Mau Street in HCMC, held an exhibition to mark 20 years of working and announce the gallery’s closing.
The artist explained that she has to stop running the gallery due to her old age, and she has not been able to find a manager for the gallery since all of her children live abroad.
According to Ha, there will be a few exhibitions before the house is sold.
Begun in 1989, Ha said the gallery aimed to promote Vietnamese contemporary artists to domestic and foreign art lovers, as well as make art exchanges with foreign countries.
New Year Festival opens at September 23rd Park in HCMC
A colorful festival to ring in New Year 2012 opened at the September 23rd Park in Ho Chi Minh City on December 26.
The New Year Festival will bring to visitors a series of cultural activities such as an exhibition on the city’s achievement in eco-socio development, activities for the Year of Action for Children and Year of Youth, and important projects from now until 2020.
There is also a children’s area, folk games, charity auction of paintings to raise funds for children, music performances and a show on traditional costumes of countries across the globe.
In addition, the biggest annual food fest called “Taste of the World Festival 2011” is being held at the park.
Some 80 restaurants and hotels in the city with around 150 display booths will present to local and foreign gastronomes hundreds of dishes from 25 countries of the world.
The food show also introduces some five-star hotel chief cooks, “My favorite delicious dishes” competition, demonstration of various cooking styles and techniques, beverage making, vegetable carving, and a photo exhibition of the sea and islands.
New Year Festival 2012 and Taste of the World Festival 2011 will run until January 1, 2012.
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