Cultural Centre in France prepares for Vietnam’s big anniversaries; Saigon Beer welcomed at Int’l Beer Festival in Berlin; French organisation to help preserve Ha Long heritage sites

Now the centre is planning various activities to promote Vietnam’s landscape, people and culture to French people and the Vietnamese community in France.

It is cooperating with the Vietnamese Department of Fine Arts to display internationally acclaimed Vietnamese art works, which have been awarded at international competitions. It is also working with the Ministry of Information and Communications to hold an exhibition of books from Vietnam’s publishing houses and arrange conferences on the centre’s upcoming activities.

At the beginning of this year, the centre carried out a campaign to intensify advertising tourism in Vietnam, especially by sea and by air, said Pham Xuan Sinh, Director of the Centre.

In addition, the centre plans to show a series of films about the capital city of Hanoi on the occasion of its 1,000th anniversary in 2010 and a photo exhibition on Hanoi’s old quarter.

In the near future, a space dedicated to Vietnamese culture, offering a wide variety of newspapers, magazines and documents about the country, will be opened in the centre.

Saigon Beer welcomed at Int’l Beer Festival in Berlin

Vietnam’s Saigon Beer is on tap at the 13th International Beer Festival in Berlin, Germany on August 7-9.

The annual festival draws the participation of 300 beer firms coming from 86 countries worldwide. This year’s event is the biggest festival of its kind in Germany since 1996.

To accompany the beer, the HM Sky Company is coordinating with the Vietnam Trade Promotion, Investment, Culture and Tourism Centre (VIETHaus AG) to serve up traditional dishes and offer up handicraft products at the festival.

Among 2,000 kinds of beer displayed in the event, Belgium is considered a stand out showcasing 12 beer firms in Berlin with high-grade suds such as cherry and St. Louis Kriek.

As usual, the 2009 Int’l Beer Festival is held along Karl Marx avenue in Berlin, divided into 21 areas. It includes open-air stages and a system of restaurants to attract millions of tourists from Germany and around the world.

The festival attracts crowds of Vietnamese living in Germany to taste Saigon Beer and traditional Vietnamese cooking, buy handicraft products and enjoy music shows performed by Vietnamese artists.

French organisation to help preserve Ha Long heritage sites

French voluntary organisation Solidarites Jeunesses Vietnam will begin a two-week campaign to preserve world heritage sites in Ha Long City next week.

Seven Vietnamese and one volunteer each from Canada, France, Germany and the Republic of Korea will clean up the beach, speak to local residents about the need to protect the environment, and consider measures to mitigate the adverse effects of economic and tourism development on the environment and people’s lives.

To be done in coordination with the Ha Long Bay Management Board, it is one of a dozen voluntary campaigns to preserve and popularise world heritage sites under the “World Heritage Volunteers: Patrimonito Rolls up the Sleeves” programme by UNESCO and Coordinating Committee for International Voluntary Service.

Solidaretes Jeunesses Vietnam has undertaken environmental and social activities in Vietnam since 2004.

PV