Hanoi to host third International Circus Festival; Portraits of heroic mothers exhibited in Hanoi; Summer sees Vietnam Week in Germany, Belgium; Famous American chef promotes Vietnamese cooking

Hanoi to host third International Circus Festival

The third International Circus Festival will be held from August 6-11 at the Central Circus Theatre, No 67-69 Tran Nhan Tong Street in Hanoi to welcome the 1,000 year anniversary of Thang Long – Hanoi.

The festival will feature a variety of performances including acrobatics and juggling magic and animal acts by Vietnamese artists and 13 other foreign art troupes from the Republic of Korea, Laos, Cambodia, China, Mongolia, Russia, France, Rumania, German, Switzerland, Italy, Spain and Australia.

The event is held jointly by the Department of Performing Arts under the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, the Vietnam Stage Artists’ Association, and the Vietnam Circus Federation.

Silk paintings in France spotlight Vietnamese culture

Nearly 40 Vietnamese silk paintings are now on display at an exhibition that opened in the Vietnamese Cultural Centre in Paris, France.

The exhibition, the fist of its kind in France, is being co-organised by the Vietnamese Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, the Vietnamese Fine Arts, Photography and Exhibition Department, the Vietnamese Embassy in France and the Vietnamese Cultural Centre in Paris.

As part of activities to celebrate the 1,000th anniversary of Thang Long-Hanoi, the exhibition features daily activities of Vietnamese people and introduces the country’s traditional culture to international friends.

The event, which will run until August 30, has attracted great attention from both Vietnamese and French artists.

Statue of Uncle Ho and President Ton Duc Thang presented to Hanoi

A ceremony to receive a statue of President Ho Chi Minh and President Ton Duc Thang was held in Hanoi yesterday.

The statue, 5.4 metres tall and weighing 20 tonnes, is a gift from the authorities and people of Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi on the occasion of its 1000th birthday.

The statue created by artist Lam Quang Noi depicts the two leaders shaking hands when President Ton Duc Thang was elected as Vice President of the country in 1960.

The work shows the respect to the country’s great leaders and to express the solidarity and unity between Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.

The statue will be placed on a 1.8-metre pedestal on Thong Nhat island in Thong Nhat Park.

Vietnamese food popular at Malaysian fair

Chefs from the Vietnamese Cau Tre Food Processing Company demonstrated how to cook vegetarian and basa fish spring rolls at Food and Beverage Trade Fair (MIFB 2010) in Kuala Lumpur on July 22.

These are the two products that the company expects will give it a foothold in a mostly Muslim market.

Meanwhile, the canned instant porridge produced by the Minh Trung company produces has also impressed many visitors and businesses attending the fair.

Minh Trung’s General Director, Nguyen Dac Minh said that the company’s products keep their original taste and are healthy as contain no preservatives.

The company’s instant porridge is now popular in Russia, the Republic of Korea, China, Brazil, the EU and Africa.

The head of the Asia-Pacific Market Department under the Ministry of Industry and Trade, Dao Tran Nhan, said that taking part in cooking demonstrations at the fair will help to promote Vietnamese products.

Vietnam should attend more international fairs to learn from other countries and make more business contacts, he said.

He also noted that local businesses must ensure food hygiene and safety standards to compete in the global market place.

The three-day MIFB 2010 has attracted businesses from 25 countries occupying 600 stands.

Seventh Congress of Vietnam Cinematography Association concludes

The 7th Congress of the Vietnam Cinematography Association (VCA) concluded yesterday in Hanoi, with a new executive committee appointed for the 2010-2015 term.

The two-day congress reviewed the association’s activities over the past five years and discussed the difficulties facing the Vietnamese film industry as well as solutions to overcome such problems.

Participants approved the congress’s resolution for the 2010-2015 term and submitted their proposal to the Central Party and State. The congress saw the participation of 500 delegates representing 1,500 members across the country.

Dang Xuan Hai who was former VCA Vice Chairman was elected as VCA Chairman. The congress also appointed Nguyen Thi Hong Ngat, Duong Cam Thuy, Lai Van Sinh and Trinh Le Van as vice chairpeople. Film Director Nguyen Vinh Son was elected as the Chairman of the Association’s Arts Council.

Australian journalists promotes Da Nang tourism

A group of Australian journalists from the Sun Herald Magazine of Sydney, a monthly publication that includes a tourism column, recently visited Da Nang city to conduct a tourism survey.

The delegation visited the city’s famous destinations including the Museum of Cham Sculpture, the Marble Mountains, Ban Na Mountain and Son Tra Peninsula as well as resorts, hotels, restaurants and other tourist facilities.

After their field trip, the journalists will write articles introducing the beauty of the city to Australian people.

The event, held jointly by the Da Nang Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism, Vietnam Airlines and the Furama Resort, is a part of the strategy to promote Da Nang’s tourism potential to the world in 2010.

Summer sees Vietnam Week in Germany, Belgium

The 2010 Vietnam Culture Week will be held in Germany and Belgium in August and September, according to the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism.

Scheduled for August 28-29 in Berlin, the event in Germany will include various activities such as Vietnamese films, a traditional arts performance and a photography exhibition about Vietnam, its people and culture.

During the week, the Vietnamese Embassy in Germany will also hold an exhibition introducing Vietnam’s countryside, people and cuisine as well as the country’s handicraft products.

The event is part of the ‘German Year in Vietnam’ and ‘Vietnamese Year in Germany’, which marks the 35th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between the two countries.

The Vietnam Cultural Week in Belgium will take place from September 1-4 with various special cultural and arts events.

Portraits of heroic mothers exhibited in Hanoi

An exhibition displaying more than 100 portraits of heroic Vietnamese mothers by painter Dang Ai Viet was held in Hanoi on July 27.

Speaking at the exhibition, Vietnamese President Nguyen Minh Triet hailed the painter’s determination to draw a large number of heroic mothers across the country.

President Triet also urged the Vietnam Women’s Union and the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Welfare to further support the painter.

On behalf of the Party and State, Mr. Triet expressed his gratitude to the fallen soldiers, the invalids and the heroics mothers as well as those who have made great contributions to the country’s revolutionary cause and called on the young generation to uphold the nation’s glorious tradition.

The 62 year-old painter has traveled across the country from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City to draw 226 charcoal and watercolour paintings of heroic mothers.

Hanoi to hold National Congress for Vietnamese Writers

The 8th National Congress of Vietnamese Writers will be held in Hanoi from August 4-6, announced the Vietnamese Writers Association at a press conference on July 27.

President of the Vietnamese Writers Association Huu Thinh said that this is the first time the congress will see the attendance of all its 992 members across the country. It plans to pass its political report and choose its theme Solidarity-Democracy-Construction-Creativity.

All the contents of the congress have been openly discussed at 10 local congresses and the Executive Board of the Vietnamese Writers Association has so far received 6 speeches from its devoted members.

The congress will seek to improve the quality of Vietnamese writings by giving writers more chances to engage in the real aspects of modern life, attracting more attention to literary criticism and discovering and training new young writers.

Famous American chef promotes Vietnamese food

World-renowned American chef Martin Yan has said that he wants to use his fame to promote Vietnamese food to the world.

Martin Yan stated this to the Lao Dong (Labour) newspaper at the 2010 World Food Festival which has just taken place in the southern coastal city of Vung Tau.

He said that he is waiting for the chance and would learn Vietnamese to introduce the country’s “pho” (noodle soup served with beef or chicken) and “nom” (sweet and sour grated salad).

Apart from showing his skills at the WFF on July 23 and 24, Yan said that he wants to learn how to cook a number of Vietnamese dishes during his current visit to the Southeast Asian nation which, he called, a wonderful country with many delicious dishes.

There are many slim and healthy people in Vietnam thanks to their sensible diets, said the chef, emphasising that it would be a good idea to start up a website with the slogan “Look! Vietnamese people are healthy because they eat Vietnamese food”. The website could not only introduce Vietnam’s dishes but also its land, people and popular tourist destinations, he added.

Yan said that he wants to cook various dishes from different countries and has learnt Vietnamese cuisine from his friend Khai, a Vietnamese national now residing in the US who runs a famous restaurant called “Ana Mandara” in San Francisco, California.

World Food Festival closes

The 2010 World Food Festival came to an end in Vung Tau City in Ba Ria-Vung Tau province on July 25, earning VND8 billion from sales of food.

During the five-day event, there were nearly 500,000 visitors eating 20 tonnes of food on average a day.

The festival attracted outlets from 40 cities and provinces nationwide and nearly 40 from overseas. Over 500 dishes were available on a 3-km stretch of the city’s Thuy Van Street.

Ho Van Nien, Vice chairman of Ba Ria-Vung Tau provincial People’s Committee, said that the city tried to draw as many tourists as possible to the festival to taste domestic and foreign dishes.

British Council honours kid painting talent

The British Council is to award the best eight of 400 entries to a painting contest on Hanoi by primary school children attending its English courses.

The contestants depicted sites around the capital and the daily lives of ordinary Hanoians to mark the capital’s millennium anniversary in October.

The awards ceremony will take place on July 24.

The child painters will also take part in art performances in English at the Tuoi Tre (Youth) Theatre.

Gaynor Evans, Deputy Director of the British Council’s Teaching Centre, said that the event aims to nurture children’s creativeness, their thirst to study and their love of the English language.

The British Council began its operations in Vietnam in 1993.

PV