First Monsoon Music Festival attracts foreign artists

Large numbers of talented artists and musicians from around the world will gather at Hanoi’s former Thang Long Imperial Citadel from October 2-4 for Monsoon Music Festival 2014.

Famous artists of Vietnam such as singers Thanh Lam and Ha Tran, jazz guitarist French-Vietnamese Nguyen Le, and foreign artists including percussionist Rhani Krija from Morocco, keyboard player Martin Hedin from Sweden and others from Denmark, the UK, France, Belgium, the Republic of Korea and Japan will take part in the festival.

The event, the first of its kind to take place in the capital city, is one of major cultural activities to celebrate Hanoi’s 60th Liberation Day (October 10).

At a press conference in Hanoi on September 3, Music Director of the Festival Quoc Trung expressed hope the event will bring a music festival for not only Hanoians but also people over the country, contributing to building a professional music industry in Vietnam.

The VTV channel will broadcast the opening ceremony live on October 2.

Many sidelines activities will be held including a street festival together with volunteers to convey a message on environmental protection, scheduled to take place at Dong Xuan night market, Hang Bac, Ta Hien and Hang Buom streets and in front of Thong Nhat (Reunification) Park.

Theatre group seeks volunteers

To prepare for its mega winter show, the Hanoi International Theatre Society (HITS) is recruiting volunteers for its production team.

Besides sponsors, HITS is looking for artists, technical directors, designers, musicians, props and costume designers and lighting technicians who have spare time and want to get involved with the behind-the-scenes work of a theatre production.

The volunteers are not expected to have experience but have commitment and a passion for the arts. An open invitation has been extended to members of the public, who meet the above criteria, to attend the HITS production meeting at at 8pm tonight (September 4) at Chez Xuan, No 41, Alley 76, An Duong Street, Tay Ho District.

BikeNBrunch offers relaxing morning

BikeNBrunch is organising a relaxing bike ride that will begin at 9am on Saturday at Daluva Restaurant & Bar, 33, To Ngoc Van Street.

The group will cross the Red River on a little boat, visit a farm and hand-pick delicious fruits (the participants are expected to bring small change for this).

After enjoying the beautiful surroundings, the bikers will go through a green banana farm and return to the starting point where they will enjoy culinary delights for brunch.

Members of the public have been invited to register for the ride, priced at VND185,000 for adults and VND140,000 for children, by sending messages with their names and numbers before 5pm tomorrow.

They can send their queries to joy@exoticvoyages.com or call 01692940141.

Berlin DJ debuts in HCM City

The Observatory will present a debut performance of Berlin-based music producer and DJ Oskar Offermann, owner of White Record label & Rimini, on September 13.

The artist focuses on deep house and disco. In 2010, his music helped him to be in the deep house charts of many stores. And then, his reputation began to grow all over Europe.

His performance will be supported by local DJ Hibiya Line.

The show will begin at 10pm at the corner of Le Lai and Ton That Tung streets in District 1. Entrance fee is VND100,000.

FVH guides visitors to temple, village

The Friends of Vietnam Heritage (FVH) will host a walk on Saturday (September 6) to discover the Quan Thanh Temple and the Ngu Xa bronze casting village.

During the walk from 9am to 12noon, the participants will visit the Quan Thanh Temple, a Taoist temple which has a four-tonne 350-year-old bronze statue of Tran Vu, Ha Noi's guardian of the North, visit pagodas around the Truc Bach Lake and a community house before reaching the Ngu Xa village and seeing some bronze-casting workshops.

Members of the public have been invited to contact Jura at jura.cullen@cantab.net with contact numbers to register for the walk which costs VND70,000 per person.

Seminar with German filmmakers held

The Goethe Institute in HCM City in collaboration with Hoa Sen University will organise a seminar with director Constanze Knoche and scriptwriter Leis Bagdach from Germany at the university on September 8.

Two filmmakers, who write screenplays for various successful German TV series and have shot a number of feature films and documentaries together, will talk about the production process of their short film Die Besuche (The Visitors).

They will discuss cinematic design of selected scenes from the film and share their personal experiences.

The event is part of the German Film Festival featuring 10 films by well-known directors which will be held from September 5-9.

The seminar will take place from 9am to 12pm at 8 Nguyen Van Trang Street in District 1.

S.I.N.E. (Saying Is Not Enough), a Vietnamese dance group, will head to Germany for the October 18 world finale of the Battle of the Year Break Dance competition.

S.I.N.E. won the coveted finale spot last week after beating out a stiff crowd of opponents in the regional round. Dance groups from Indonesia, Malaysia, Laos, Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines gathered at East Sea Park in Da Nang City to see whose break dance moves would win them a ticket to Germany.

Disabled to compete in dance and music contest

The Viet Nam Orphans and Disabled People Sponsors' Association and other concerned agencies are organising the first-ever dance and music contest for the disabled in the country.

The contest, to be held from September to November, will carry the theme "Sympathy Hearts".

National-level qualifying rounds will take place this month in the northern province of Vinh Phuc, the central province of Nghe An and the southern city of HCM.

The final round will be held at the Friendship Culture Palace here from November 26 to 29 and will be broadcast live on VTV on the last day. The jury will include experts in the arts and social matters.

All disabled people throughout the country who are selected from local talent contests are eligible to compete. Each individual participant can give a maximum of two performances while each group participant can give a maximum of five performances, consisting of either singing, dancing or playing musical instruments

Various prizes will be given for the individual and group category, with the highest prize of VND30 million (US$1,400) going to the winning group.

University to hold conference on contemporary Asian cinema

The University of Social Sciences and Humanities is organising a national scientific conference on contemporary Asian cinema in the capital city by end-December.

The conference will showcase general views on film production and distribution throughout Asia and other matters of concern to the region such as new cinema trends.

The university is calling on experts and cinema workers to register. Deadline for submission of speeches is on November 30.

Vietnam to host UK Film Week 2014

Sunshine on Leith, a musical film, will open UK Film Week 2014 in Vietnam themed “Scotland-Year of Homecoming” from September 22-28.

The event aims to celebrate Scotland as the host country of the 2014 Commonwealth Games, which took place in Glasgow in early August.

Other feature films to be shown include Shell, Ae Fond Kiss, For Those in Peril, Not Another Happy Ending and Shell, representing a mixture of genres to highlight the richness of Scottish culture.

These films will premier at CGV cinemas in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. Free tickets will be available at the British Council in both cities from September 15.

On this occasion, the British Council will cooperate with YxineFF - a local non-profit project supporting young filmmakers - to introduce seven short films by young Vietnamese filmmakers.

Stage director Paul Welsh, founder of Digicult, an independent film company specialising in developing emerging film talent, will also fly to Vietnam to deliver two workshops on film pitching, targeting potential filmmakers in Vietnam.

Cao Yet ceremony opens 2014 Con Son-Kiep Bac Autumn Festival

The northern province of Hai Duong on September 3 held the Cao Yet (ceremony to open the temple), the first important activity in the sequence of operations during the 2014 Con Son-Kiep Bac Autumn Festival.

Traditionally, on August 10 of the lunar calendar each year, residents in the villages of Van Son and Duoc Son organise the Cao Yet ceremony asking for permission to open the temple and kick start the festival.

The annual festival is held in commemoration of the death anniversary of national hero General Tran Hung Dao, who led Vietnamese people to defeat three invasion wars by the Mongols in the 13th century. He passed away on August 20 (lunar calendar) in 1300.

A range of traditional rituals and ceremonies will take place following the Cao Yet ceremony under the framework of the festival, including Khai An (seal opening) ceremony at Kiep Bac temple, incense offering ceremony in commemoration of the death anniversary of Hung Dao Dai Vuong Tran Quoc Tuan (General Tran Hung Dao), a peace praying ceremony and lantern festival.

On the occasion, Hai Duong province also organised its 5th water puppet festival and a traditional boat racing game. Folk games such as wrestling, catching ducks and rice cooking contests are expected to draw attention from visitors to the festival.

The locality offers a tourism promotion programme during the festival in which local authorities will offer 10% of the price of tickets to the relics and offer free guidance to visiting delegations. Costs for accommodation will be reduced between five and 30%.

Con Son-Kiep Bac relic site in Chi Linh town, Hai Duong province is entwined with the lives and careers of General Tran Hung Dao and Nguyen Trai, who was awarded the title ‘Great Man of Culture of the World’ by UNESCO in 1980. The site is also an important place in Truc Lam Zen Buddhism where Huyen Quang, one of the three founders of the Buddhism branch, chose to practice religion.

Every year in the Con Son-Kiep Bac site there are two festivals held in spring and autumn attracting thousands of pilgrims and Buddhist followers from all over the country.

Full Moon Festival to be celebrated in Hanoi

The annual Mid-Autumn Festival will be held at the Vietnam Exhibition Centre for Culture and Arts from September 5 – 8, featuring a fun and exciting programme of events for children.

This year’s festivities include a range of activities, such as an exhibition, a fun fair and art performances.

The highlight of the festival will no doubt be the lantern parade, drawing 400 performers, including circus troupes, dragon dance groups, martial arts clubs and musicians, which will take place on September 7.

The street show aims to pay tribute to Vietnam’s traditional beliefs, culture and celebrations.

Furthermore, many young famous artists will perform in a charity concert to raise funds for disadvantaged children.

Art performance accompanies unfortunate children

The annual charitable “Fairy Moon” art performance, the seventh of its kind, aims to raise around one billion VND (47,000 USD) to support children from disadvantaged background in the lead up to the Mid-Autumn Festival.

The money will be used to pay for surgery for ten children born with heart disease and grant 50 scholarship and thousands of gifts to poor children, Agent Orange/ Dioxin victims and child patients to cheer them up on the occasion of the festival, which is a major event for Vietnamese children.

The programme this year will be held at the Hanoi Opera on September 6 (the 13th of September on the lunar calendar), and will be broadcast live on VTV2.

Besides special art performances by popular artists and children art clubs in Hanoi, television reports will be aired telling moving stories about children living in difficult circumstances.

Over the past seven years, more than 20 billion VND (940,000 USD) has been raised through the programme to help ill-fated children across the country. The proceeds have helped over 100 poor children undergo heart surgery, built houses for orphans, and presented gifts and scholarships for thousands of poor children.

The “Fairy Moon” performance is organised by the Family and Children Magazine, Vietnam Television, the Journalists and Public Opinion newspaper, the Red Cross Society of Hanoi, and the Thu Do and Thien Son Media Joint Stock Companies.-

The Epitome of Wedding Elegance at JW Marriott Hanoi

The JW Marriott Hanoi will host a special wedding fair at the hotel’s open door and Grand ballroom from 10am till 9pm on September 14, 2014.

During this event, the hotel offers various attractive promptions for couples. Accordingly, any couples will receive 10 per cent discount if their weddings are booked between now and the end of December 2014.

The hotel also runs an exciting “Love Story” competition for the brides to share their stories in photos and win wonderful prizes from JW Marriott Hanoi and well-known brands such as a 2-night getaway at JW Marriott Hanoi, a dinner for 02 persons at the hotel’s French Grill Restaurant, a dinner for two persons at the hotel’s Crystal Jade Chinese restaurant and various wedding photo shooting packages worth around $300 to $1,000 at Nupakachi Studio or from 361 STUDIOS or Tiara Wedding Studio.

Furthermore the hotel offers special Early Bird promotion for any couples booking their weddings from September 1 to December 31, 2014 with a discount of 20 per cent on their wedding packages. A meaningful party with warm atmosphere and exquisite decorations and the dedicated support of our professional banquet team is a great gift for your partner and your family in this special day.

Farmers of Khuc Thuy and Khe Tan villages in Hanoi performed a musical entitled “Dong song khong chay nguoc” (a river never flows upstream) over the weekend as a part of an environment project “Di va Mo” (Go and Open).

The play tells a story about people whose lives are attached strongly to their homeland river. After years of leaving his hometown, the main character Thach returns home and realizes that the river in his homeland has changed and the scenic river in his childhood now is just a memory of the past. His biggest wish and also biggest challenge are to persuade his wife and people in his village to restore the river and protect the environment.

As an interactive musical, the show is aimed to awaken people’s love and protection for their river and urge them to find solutions to ensure a healthy living environment for the residents of Khuc Thuy and Khe Tang Village.

The residents have done almost everything by themselves to create the play, with the support and costumes provided by the “Di va Mo” project.

“Di va Mo” is a voluntary project run by students in Hanoi and overseas to support educational programs in the country.

World Heritage Site to woo Mid-Autumn Festival goers

A multitude of diverse cultural, art and sports activities marking the upcoming Mid-Autumn Festival are set to take place from September 6-8 at the historic relics and pagodas in Hoi An ancient town.

The highlight of this year’s festival will be a revival of the night of Hoi An ancient town in the early 20th century, a lantern parade and a dragon dance through the streets.

Truong Van Bay, vice chairman of the municipal People’s Committee, said Hoi An, a UNESCO-recognised World Heritage site, has always offered a variety of entertainment and cultural activities aimed at improving the spiritual life of local residents and attracting more local and foreign tourists alike.

Earlier on the occasion of National Day (September 2), a contest on Bai Choi singing was held in the city. Bai Choi is a popular folk game in the south central coastal area.

Art performance accompanies unfortunate children

The annual charitable “Fairy Moon” art performance, the seventh of its kind, aims to raise around VND1 billion (US$47,000) to support children from disadvantaged background in the lead up to the Mid-Autumn Festival.

The money will be used to pay for surgery for ten children born with heart disease and grant 50 scholarship and thousands of gifts to poor children, Agent Orange/ Dioxin victims and child patients to cheer them up on the occasion of the festival, which is a major event for Vietnamese children.

The programme this year will be held at the Hanoi Opera on September 6 (the 13th of September on the lunar calendar), and will be broadcast live on VTV2.

Besides special art performances by popular artists and children art clubs in Hanoi, television reports will be aired telling moving stories about children living in difficult circumstances.

Over the past seven years, more than VND20 billion (US$940,000) has been raised through the programme to help ill-fated children across the country. The proceeds have helped over 100 poor children undergo heart surgery, built houses for orphans, and presented gifts and scholarships for thousands of poor children.

The “Fairy Moon” performance is organised by the Family and Children Magazine, Vietnam Television, the Journalists and Public Opinion newspaper, the Red Cross Society of Hanoi, and the Thu Do and Thien Son Media Joint Stock Companies.

Phu Tho acts to save cultural treasures

The northeastern province of Phu Tho has devised measures to preserve its cultural assets in the long run, including rituals worshipping the Hung Kings and “xoan” singing.

According to historians, no country in the world has rituals quite like Vietnam’s worshipping of national ancestors. The Vietnamese have believed for generations that the Hung Kings are the founders and ancestors of the nation. As a result, worshipping them is a unique cultural ritual which has been recognised by UNESCO as an intangible cultural heritage.

In the near future, the province will gather information and feedback on all its cultural heritages, and come up with a preservation plan of action for each one.

The status of xoan singing, a traditional art form also included in UNESCO’s list of intangible cultural heritage in need of urgent protection, has prompted various authorities to take action to ensure its continued existence.

This year, master xoan singers will pass their skills on to young learners, especially school teachers, so they can in turn introduce it in local schools, Deputy Director of the provincial Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism Pham Ba Khiem said.

Between 2015 and 2020, the department will survey and analyse the state of xoan singing in the locality, and, based on this, will take all necessary actions.

As one of the oldest forms of Vietnamese performing arts, xoan singing is believed to have been developed during the reign of the Hung Kings (2890 BC to 250 BC). Traditionally, singers from xoan guilds performed songs in sacred spaces, such as temples, shrines and communal houses during spring festivals.

There are three kinds of xoan singing, including songs of worship for Hung Kings and village guardian spirits; ritual songs for abundant crops, health and good luck; and festival songs, with villagers alternating male and female verses in a form of courtship. The singing is accompanied by dance and musical instruments, such as clappers and drums.

Phu Tho is home to over 1,370 relic sites and 260 festivals, many of which have become unique spiritual symbols, such as the festival of Hung Kings and Dao Xa elephant festival. Numerous intangible heritages, such as Moi and Chuong dance, originate here.

An Giang hosts ceramics exhibition

Over 600 ceramic antiques are on display at a two-month exhibition which opened at the beginning of September in the southern province of An Giang .

The exhibits are of a wide range of objects from Buddha statues, censers to pots, cups, and bowls, reflecting the traditional culture of the southern region.

Four major ceramic styles are featured at the exhibition, which are the Cay Mai (apricot tree), Old Sai Gon, Lai Thieu and Bien Hoa. Among them, Cay Mai ceramics are mostly for religious purpose, while Old Sai Gon and Lai Thieu items are mainly for daily life use. Bien Hoa ceramics were intended for decorating, many of which have won prizes at international fairs held in Paris in 1925 and 1932.

The exhibition is one of activities to mark the 69th National Day (September 2) and the upcoming announcement of the special national historical relic status of the Oc Eo archaeological site in An Giang, where the first artifacts of an ancient material culture was found.

Vietnamese woman founds online library with nearly 1,000 books

A local book enthusiast has created an online library with a wide range of books, particularly those in foreign languages, to share her passion with like-minded peers and provide them with a handy, affordable book service.

Earlier this year, Le Luu Anh Thu, 30, founded iBookStop.vn, an online library which now boasts almost 1,000 books on management-economics, design and fine arts, and literature.

A number of the titles are written in foreign languages, mostly English, and many are quite hard to come by on the local market.

An avid reader since childhood, Thu spent her free time visiting book stores and libraries across the country and abroad, searching for an appropriate book-sharing model for Vietnam.

Once, she visited the Thailand Creative Design Center at Emporium, a luxury shopping mall and popular hub for entertainment, food, and education in Bangkok.

The young woman was amazed to see Thai families voraciously reading books, despite all the noise and bustling activity around them.

She then came up with the idea to build a similar library in Vietnam so that her own children would one day have an ideal place to play and read books.

Thu then began planning, researching and experimenting, before launching the website earlier this year.

To the surprise of many, she quit her job as a personnel manager, and has freelanced ever since so she can devote more time to her website.

She spent her savings on the website and showcased her treasured book collection to start with.

“Since I was a little girl, I’ve always been intrigued by the piles of dusty books at old book stores. However, as members of today’s tech-savvy world, my peers and I can’t afford the time to peruse the books at book stores. So I launched this ‘online book stop,’” Thu explained.

To borrow a book from ibookstop.vn, users only need to enter the website and choose a service package.

For example, for a monthly fee of VND29,000 (US$1.40) and a down payment of VND1.5 million ($71) for one year, users can borrow books with a total (cover) price equal to the down payment.

Users will benefit from the online book ordering and home book delivery services, as well as constant assistance and advice in book selection from Thu and her two partners.

Mai Thanh Van, a university graduate in Library and Information Sciences, quit her job to work with Thu.

Van said that she, Thu and another female partner do everything, including searching for, buying, arranging, and delivering books to clients’ homes.

The trio finds searching for books the most challenging task, as a number of clients want books which are no longer published.

To satisfy this demand, Thu and her partners keep in regular contact with old book stores across the country and abroad and make use of online services that supply rare books.

The group is also planning to launch a mini-library, where book lovers can go on the weekend to indulge in rare books, including those ordered from abroad.

“It’s much more convenient and economical to borrow books, compared to buying them. I often feel cheated buying books with nice covers and brilliant prefaces but horrific content,” shared Thanh Vy, a regular client of iBookStop.

Nguyen Thi Ngoc Huyen, an office worker who invariably has her hands full with her workload and young children, also finds the book lending service at iBookStop ideal for finding foreign books on raising kids and household arts.

According to Quang Anh, a local graphic designer, it costs him at least VND500,000 ($24) to buy a foreign-printed book, but only a fifth of this amount to borrow such books.

Apart from running her online library, Thu also holds on a monthly basis offline book exchanges and free screenings of films adapted from books to encourage young people to read.

A new anthology of Vietnamese New Formalism Poetry

Vietnamese New Formalism- Absorb and Create (Tan hinh thuc Viet- Tiep nhan va sang tao) is the name of a newly-published anthology of Vietnamese New Formalism poetry by Tan Thuan Hoa Publishing Group and Song Huong Magazine. The Vietnamese-English bilingual book is a precious source of material on Vietnamese New Formalism.

New Formalism was introduced in the 1970s in America and first appeared in Vietnam in 2000. In the book, there are many articles about New Formalism, which helps to define Vietnamese New Formalism as narrative poetry written in Vietnamese daily language in the form of traditional Vietnamese poetry (with four to eight words each sentence), using both English and American techniques to create the music of poetry and restore its rhythm.

New Formalism has been known for 15 years so far with thousands of poems of this style and related articles have been published. However, there are mixed opinions towards New Formalism with some embracing it while the others not. This anthology with hundreds of international and Vietnam’s new formalism poems is an attempt to solidify New Formalism’s position in Vietnam.

VNA/VNS/VOV/SGT/SGGP/ND