2015 Celtic music festival in Hanoi this weekend

2015 Celtic music festival in Vietnam opened in big cities, including Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and the coastal city of Nha Trang from May 17-23.

For this “Breton Day 2015″, the Breton society in Vietnam has invited musicians reputed throughout the world who will present all the different aspects of celtic musics from tradition to modernity.

More than 40 musicians and 7 bands perform during the festival, including the Kemperle Pipe Band, Lang Dzu band, Celtic Rock Diaouled, Alan Pennec, Jakez Lesouef, Hot Tzigani band and Turbo Sans Visa.

After successful perfomances in Ho Chi Minh City on May 16-17 and in Nha Trang on 20, the event will take place at L’Espace and Chez Xuan in Hanoi on May 22-23 respectively.

HCM City to celebrate Khmer New Year

The Ethnic Khmer New Year, Chol Chnam Thmay, will be featured at the Southern Land food festival, held at Dam Sen Park in HCM City from May 29 to June 1.

The Khmer Art Troupe of Bac Lieu Province will showcase life, culture, and art of the ethnic minorities during the four day festival, said a representative of the city's Department's of Tourism at a press briefing yesterday.

They will feature Khmer's costumes and the dances lam thol and chhay dam, and perform dan ngu am (five-tone musical instrument).

The fifth festival will also focus on ethnic cuisine with dishes like bun nuoc leo (vermicelli soup cooked from Bo Hoc salted fish) and cakes made of palm sugar and ginger.

In addition, restaurants, hotels and well-known food and beverage businesses in HCM City and 16 provinces, including Vung Tau, Dong Nai, Binh Thuan, Ninh Thuan, Tay Ninh, Ben Tre, and Long An, will take part in the event with a total of 100 food pavilions.

Cuisines from the central coast , Central Highlands and the south will be highlighted at the event.

Besides enjoying a wide variety of more than 200 dishes, visitors will have an opportunity to watch demonstrations of cooking arts, and decorative arts of fruit and vegetable carvings.

"Mot Goc Cho Que Phuong Nam" (A Corner of the Rural Southern Market) will display Southern specialties, including goat, duck and chicken, and will feature hawkers as well as a circus and ho doi dap (call-and-response singing).

Entrance to Dam Sen Park is free, but a food coupon must be purchased for VND200,000.

The organisers, in cooperation with Bac Lieu Province's Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism, will donate VND100 million from the festival's proceeds to 20 poor Khmer households in the province's Hoa Binh District.

Debuting in 2011, the festival has become an annual event of the city designed to promote regional cuisine to both local and foreign tourists.

Autistic children to display artworks

An art exhibition by autistic children will be held in downtown Ha Noi soon.

Titled Khac Biet & Tuong Lai (Difference and Future), the event will feature paintings and other artworks by five children: Nguyen Trung Hieu, Ha Dinh Chi, Nguyen Gia Bao, Pham Binh Minh, and Trinh Hoang Minh. The theme of their painting and artwork is "Supporting Differences, Creating Better Future for Children with Autism".

The event will gather various noted artists such as composer Giang Son, artists Mai Tuyet Hoa, Minh Kien, Quang Minh, and Hong Quan.

An Art and Autism Fund will be officially announced at the event, which will be held at 6.30pm on May 26 at Laca Art Cafe, 24 Ly Quoc Su Street.

Ben Tre to hold fruit festival

Cho Lach district, which has the largest fruit cultivation area in the Mekong Delta province of Ben Tre, will hold the annual fruit festival at its Culture and Sport Centre from June 15 to 21.

The festival will feature a delicious and safe fruit contest, a cuisine contest, folk games, art performances, and a fair to showcase fruit seedlings, flowers, and ornamental plants.

A highlight will be four artworks in the shapes of four sacred animals (dragon, unicorn, tortoise, and phoenix) made entirely from fruits.

Situated between two major rivers – Co Chien and Ham Luong – and with a dense system of rivers and canals, Cho Lach is famous for its delicious fruit varieties like durian, Java rambutan, and mangosteen.

Cho Lach also has many tourism destinations like flower and ornamental plant villages, Cai Mon Church – one of the country's 10 largest – and the house of Truong Vinh Ky (1837-98), who was one of the world's 18 leading scholars in the 19th century.

Thua Thien-Hue revises garden house preservation goal

Central Thua Thien-Hue province will focus its efforts on restoring up to 40 local renowned gardens houses through 2020 instead of 150 houses as set from the previous period.

The adjustment is prompted by the fact that the initial target proved to be out of reach due to limited local budget. In addition, owners of houses with large area face difficulties in paying land tax and related costs. Since 2006, the authorities of Hue City have approved the restoration of six old hoses but actual work has been done at only two. Owners of the other four could not afford the costs.

The garden houses are the embodiment of Hue’s past grand dynasties. They embrace the traditional architect and are surrounded by charmingly landscaped gardens. Those homes are privately owned, usually by descendents of the royal family. Popular locations that have become tourist attractions include An Hien, Ngoc Son, Lac Tien, Y Thao and Tinh Gia Vien. However, rapid urbanisation has long been blame for damaging the local beautiful feature.

The provincial People’s Committee’s Economics and Budget Commission recently proposed exempting selected houses, from the tax imposed on non-arable land.

Director of Thua Thien-Hue Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism, Phan Tien Dung, said the owners that make efforts to protect their homes should be rewarded to encourage others to follow.

The 2015 Southern Cuisine Festival will take place at Dam Sen Cultural Park on May 29 to June 1, announced Department of Tourism of Ho Chi Minh City.

This year’s festival attracts the participation of hundred of cuisine booths from16 provinces across the countries.

The 2015 Southern Cuisine Festival is an annual event, organized by Department of tourism of HCMC, aiming to popularize regional cuisine culture and local specialties to domestic and foreign tourists.

Heart Beat brings Italian DJ to Pulse party

Heart Beat Saigon, a HCMC-based group of DJs from different countries, will host a Pulse music event featuring Italian DJ Marco Mei at the Saigon Lookout in District 1, HCMC from 9 p.m. till late Friday.

Marco Mei has had over two decades of globetrotting artist experience. He currently lives in Taipei and dominates the local club scene with European underground vibes. His signature party “Ciao Taipei” was revealed in 2013 and allowed him to become part of an ever growing network of quality artists in Southeast Asia.

In 2009 Marco teamed up with Stefano Ugliano (aka 6884) and started duo project “Bicycle Corporation”. So far they have released more than 50 tracks and remixes, ranging from Deep and Tech-House to French House and Techno.

The party also includes local and foreign DJs, Oko from Ukraine, Chris Wolter from Germany, one of the founders of Heart Beat Saigon, B.A.X from Vietnam and Swedish visual artist Erol.

Tickets are priced at VND50,000 per person. For further information, access www.fb.com/www.saigonslookout.com.vn.

Saigon Lookout is located at 37bis Ky Con Street in HCMC’s District 1.

Tourists and local residents will be able to witness a traditional horse race on June 6-7 as part of the Cultural Tourism Week held in Bac Ha district in the northern mountainous province of Lao Cai.

Nearly 200 horses will perform in a procession, after which 100 horses will race each other, either in teams or as individuals.

The winning team will be awarded a prize worth 20 million VND (920 USD) and the winning individual will receive 6 million VND (260 USD).

The stadium in the municipal centre can hold up to 5,000 spectators, both tourists and locals alike. Tickets cost 30,000 VND (1.3 USD).

The traditional form of riding without a saddle makes the horse race in Bac Ha all the more fun to watch and spectacular performances are to be expected.

During the war, horse racing was discontinued as jockeys were sent to the battlefields to protect their country’s independence.

In the spring of 1980, a horse race organised by the Bac Ha Military Command brought together more than 50 jockeys from villages all over the district.

Twenty-seven years later, horse racing was officially taken up again as a cultural activity as part of the annual tourism development cooperation programme run by eight north-western provinces.

Bac Ha district is inhabited by 14 ethnic minority groups, predominantly H’Mong, Dao, Tay , and Nung.

More and more visitors are coming to Bac Ha to attend the unique festival, with visitor numbers doubling to 30,000 in 2012 compared to 2009.

Lao Cai hosted 1,470,000 visitors in 2014, including 545,230 international tourists.

Seminar connects Francophone cities in urban heritage

A seminar entitled ‘Urban Heritage and Sustainable Development’ opened in Hue city on May 21, attracting the participation of over 200 Vietnamese and foreign delegates working in the fields.

Delegates at the three-day event focused their discussions on the relations between heritage and cities, climate change and technical and social initiatives.

In his speech, Pierre Baillet, Permanent Secretary of the International Association of Francophone Mayors (AIMF), the event’s organiser, stressed that the AIMF attached global attention to such topics relating to culture in connection with development.

The association also wants to consolidate relations among Francophone cities in the Southeast Asia region as well as its relations with other dynamic Asian cities in exchanging and sharing experiences on urban heritage and sustainable development, he said.

Chairman of Hue city People’s Committee Nguyen Van Thanh hailed the AIMF for its initiatives launched in recent years on urban heritages and for its support for the city’s leaders in cultural heritage preservation and promoting balanced city management and planning.

As a positive member of the AIMF, Hue city always shows active participation and makes contributions to the organisation’s operation, representing the city’s strong commitment to the conservation and sustainable development of its heritages.

The national professional song and dance competition 2015 (first phase) opened in Thai Nguyen city on May 21, attracting the participation of more than 1,000 artists from 17 art troupes from northern provinces (Quang Binh northward).

The event, held by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism every three years, aims to evaluate the quality of artistic activities and operations of professional art troupes over the past three years, as well as put forth the development orientations for the next years towards preserving and promoting the traditional cultural values of 54 ethnic groups across the country.

The opening ceremony brought audiences song and dance performances by the Thai Nguyen art troupe, boosting the unique cultural values of the land and people of Thai Nguyen and the province's tourism potential.

The competition is expected to uncover new talents and create a chance for artists to meet and discuss experiences in the field of art.

The competition will run until May 27.

VNS/VOV/SGGP/ND