The Phu Day Festival has begun with traditional ceremonies, plus artistic activities and unique national games including singing, human chess, wrestling and dragon and lion dancing.

One of the five biggest national festivals, the Phu Day Festival at Nam Dinh Province's Vu Ban District expresses spiritual life and the Holy Mother worship custom. It contributes to preserving and promoting Vietnamese spiritual cultural values.

The Phu Day Festival will end on Sunday.

* Foreign artists exhibit installations

Two foreign artists are displaying their collaborative installation works at an exhibition in Hue.

Frenchwoman Kristine McCarroll and Australia's Levitus Geoff have done paintings and other works with silk, a traditional Vietnamese material.

The exhibition is on at 15 Le Loi Street and will run through Sunday.

* Satirical comic book hits shelves

The third comic book Giong To (Storm) adapted from the novel of the same name by late writer Vu Trong Phung, and published by Phan Thi Company, has been put on sale in HCM City.

Storm satirises the lifestyle of Viet Nam's wealthy people in the late 1930's when the country was under French domination.

Phung's Storm, which contains 30 chapters, will be published in six comic books. The first two books distributed early this year have received a warm welcome from young readers.

Phung, from the northern province of Hung Yen, was one of Viet Nam's well-known writers in the 20th century. He died of tuberculosis at 27.

Phan Thi Co, which brings Vietnamese literary masterpieces closer to young readers, published comic adaptations of the novels Chi Pheo by Nam Cao and Tat Den (Lights Off) by Ngo Tat To last year.

VietNamNet/Viet Nam News