Addressing the opening ceremony of the event, Ambassador to Belgium Pham Sanh Chau said Vietnam is one of the two countries chosen as the main theme of the expo “Let’s explore Vietnam”.

The expo will bring Belgium friends an image of a peaceful and beautiful Vietnam, Chau said.

On display on 1,200 sq.m are models on the One-Pillar Pagoda, Ha Long Bay, Hue imperial palace and craft villages of Vietnam as well as costumes of its ethnic minorities.

The annual expo is expected to last through November 13.

source from: dtinews

A traveler makes a tea cup by herself at Bat Trang Pottery Village.

Thang Long, the former name of the Vietnamese capital from the Ly Dynasty, was founded in 1010 when Ly Thai To relocated the royal court. The Dai La Citadel, as it was originally known, subsequently changed its name to Thang Long and then Hanoi.

Half of the tour is for visiting attractions in Hanoi and neighboring provinces, especially Bat Trang Pottery Village, Dong Ho Folk Painting Village and Dong Ky Carpentry Village for tourists to witness the skills of the craftsmen.

Of the villages, Bat Trang is the most popular attraction. Located by the Red River, the village is popular for being an ancient pottery handicraft village and for retaining unique Vietnamese culture in the 21st century.

Most of Bat Trang’s pottery products are produced the same way they were 700 years ago. The products of the village are not only famous in the country but also in Japan, Korea, Australia and Europe.

The tour includes visiting Halong Bay in Quang Ninh Province, a one night stay at the Tuan Chau Resort and a trip to visit other attractions in Hanoi. The tour takes in most of the major sites in the capital, including Hoan Kiem Lake, Van Mieu-Quoc Tu Giam (Temple of Literature), the National University, Dong Xuan Market, Quan Thanh Temple, West Lake, Tran Quoc Pagoda and One Pillar Pagoda.

The tour is VND2.85 million per Vietnamese and VND3.05 million per foreigner, not including air tickets.

Contact the company at 86 Ly Tu Trong Street, District 1, HCMC, tel: 08 3520 2020, fax: 08 3829 6269, email: domestic@benthanhtourist.com.vn or website: travel.benthanhtourist.com.vn.

VietNamNet/SGT

VietNamNet Bridge – Experts and government officials reviewed the situation and discussed solutions for the cultural industry in Vietnam at a seminar held by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism in Hanoi last weekend.

The concept of “cultural industry” is still unclear in Vietnam (Photo: Models on the catwalk of the Dep Fashion Show – the most prestigious fashion event in Vietnam).

Dr. Nguyen Danh Nga, chief of the Planning – Finance Department, said: “The cultural industry contributed US$46 billion to Canada’s gross domestic product (GDP) and employed 600,000 workers in 2007. In Japan, total revenue from the Doremon cartoon (TV broadcasting rights, cartoon, souvenirs and others) was $2 billion in 2007.”

Nga cited these statistics to make a comparison to Vietnam’s situation, where there are no official statistics about revenue and profit from cultural business.

In Vietnam, there is no policy, statistics nor even the concept of “cultural industry”, experts said.

In this context, the seminar attracted speakers who have worked in the cultural market for many years and actively worked to have a dynamic and effective policy to create a real cultural industry for Vietnam.

Sad facts

Dr. Nga said that the movie industry in Vietnam produces around ten big-screen films a year but only one of them is accepted by the market.

“The country has 129 drama and art troupes, including 12 managed by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism,” Nha said. “These troupes receive investment of 100 billion dong a year from the state budget but they only spend around 10 billion dong on their art works and the remaining is for facilities, salary, and other paper work.”

According to Nga, these troupes can arrange up to 2-3 works per year and total ticket revenue never exceeds 30 billion per year, equivalent to a small part of private art troupes.

Truong Nhuan, deputy director of the Tuoi Tre (Youth) Theatre, said that a medium-scale private company like Son Lam in Hanoi earns more than 100 billion for organising shows.

“In Vietnam’s total product structure, cultural and sports activities accounted for only 0.55 percent of the total value in 1995 and 0.44 percent in 2008,” said Nguyen Lam Tuan Anh from the Institute of Culture and Arts, quoting General Statistics Office data.

Dr. Pham Viet Long, former chief of the office of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, said: “Annually, I and Mr. Nga have to go to the Finance Ministry to ask for funding for making films, organising exhibitions and marketing Vietnamese culture… Once we ‘ask’, we are naturally quickly found to be at fault in some way.

“It is because we have only a vague understanding of cultural business, let alone a cultural industry. And because we cannot guarantee specific profit from cultural business, so they don’t want to invest in the cultural business,” he said.

Contradictions

In the first stage to define the concept of the cultural industry in Vietnam, “Vietnam’s basic difficulty is not only the lack of money but the existence of many contradictions,” said Dr. Nga.

He pointed out some contradictions, for instance the contradiction between abstract cultural values with the specific market effectiveness, the one between the urgency of cultural development with the backward awareness of many people of the cultural industry, the contradiction between the quick growth of cultural consumption with the backwardness of the cultural production mode, the contradiction between the urgency of the cultural industry and the incompetent legal system, among others.

Researchers and policy makers agreed that to develop the cultural industry in Vietnam, the country has to change its conceptions of this new area.

“We have to change the thinking that the cultural sector as a non-profit industry,” said Dr. Nga.

He proposed the creation of a suitable system of policies for the cultural industry.

Dr. Pham Viet Long said that Vietnam should learn from countries which have strongly developed cultural industries. “In the US, the government has added spending in cultural activities as production costs and exempts taxes for cultural activities,” he said.

“In Vietnam, we should begin from rejecting the ask-give mechanism of funding for cultural activities. We have to design a mechanism to urge investment in cultural activities to earn high profit,” he added.

source: vietnamnet.vn

What are the characteristics of Ben Thanh market’s food? Why has this market becomes a must-see destination and a symbol of HCM City?

The market developed from informal markets created by early 17th century street vendors gathering together near the Saigon River. The market was formally established by the French colonial powers after taking over Gia Dinh citadel in 1859. This market was destroyed by fire in 1870 and rebuilt to become Saigon’s largest market. In 1912 the market was moved to a new building and called the New Ben Thanh Market to distinguish it from its predecessor. The building was renovated in 1985.

At present, Ben Thanh market is in the city’s hub and a familiar address for Vietnamese people and international tourists.

Like Dong Xuan market in Hanoi, Ben Thanh market has nearly all kinds of goods. However, the most outstanding “products” in this market are its food stuffs.

Passing souvenirs, fashion and footwear stores, visitors will see the zone for food. They will see hundreds of cuisines sourced from every corner of the country: from Hanoi’s pho (noodle) to Hue’s banh beo (rice cake), Chinese Vietnamese’s hu tieu (noodle), spring rolls, etc. Gastronomic culture in Ben Thanh market is the wonderful mixture of cuisines of different regions to form a diversified and unique feature for the market, which are both familiar and new. The market is quite narrow but perhaps it will help visitors feel “warm”.

Night market is a significant element of Ben Thanh market, where gastronomic culture is shown more clearly with broader space for visitors to taste Vietnamese cuisines.

SOURCE:vietnamnet.vn

Fashion designer Ho Tran Da Thao has arrived in the U.K. to compete in the final of the International Young Fashion Entrepreneur Award 2009.
Thao became Vietnam’s representative in the competition after winning the national section of the International Young Fashion Entrepreneur Award, organized by the British Council, in October last year.

In the upcoming event, she will be one of nine finalists vying for the prestigious title and a prize worth 7,500 pounds (US$11,000) as well as business opportunities with U.K. fashion companies.

The winner of the competition will be announced at a special event on February 21 during London Fashion Week.

The International Young Fashion Entrepreneur Award celebrates the importance of creative entrepreneurs working in the field of fashion. It is part of the International Young Creative Entrepreneur Award program organized by the global British Council.

Thao is currently the creative director and designer of her own fashion company, the International Lifestyle Company, founded last year.

The young designer, well-known through her “Tsafari” label, won the Mercedez-Benz Asia Fashion Award in 2004 and received a scholarship worth US$10,000 from Singapore’s Raffles LaSalle Institute.

The first ‘Culture Day of Vietnamese Ethnic Groups” in 2009, to take place on 18 and 19 April, at Culture-Tourism Village of Vietnamese ethnic groups (Dong Mo-Son Tay-Hanoi) started in today.

The event sees the participation 33 provinces and cities (of which 15province and cities from North, 12 provinces in the Central and 6 provinces and cities from the South) on behalf of 54 Vietnamese ethnic groups in three regions of the country.

The Culture Day of Vietnamese ethnic groups have organised with many activities such as arts-culture exchange, traditional costume performance, folk game, film show on Vietnamese ethnic groups’ culture, Uncle Ho with Vietnamese ethnic groups.

Besides, it also holds various conferences on patriotic nationalities, intelligence persons, village patriarchs, artisans and typical scientists; exhibition of documents, objects, fine arts, photograph, newspapers, books and products, culture, tourism and yield of the locals.

Tuyet Mai and Dinh Linh introduce the origin and the characteristics of each kind of instrument.

“Some people have called us art traders, who do business with traditional music. I was sad at the beginning. I don’t think I’m doing anything wrong by using my knowledge and talent to support my life. Moreover, we have tried to show our passion for and to advertise traditional music,” Meritorious Artist Tuyet Mai said.

A small house at 104 Pham Viet Chanh, Ward 19, Binh Thanh district, HCM City, named TrucMai House, is the place where Tuyet Mai and her husband, Dinh Linh, perform their skills and talents. They are both Meritorious Artists and former students of the Hanoi Conservatory of Music, which is the Vietnam National Music Institute at present.

In that small house, one can see over 20 types of musical instruments, including popular traditional ones like dan tranh (16-chord zither), tam thap luc (36-chord zither), Kongput, T’rung, bamboo flute and others.

Besides enjoying traditional music works played by the two artists, visitors can ask anything about the origin and the characteristics of each instrument in a warm and close atmosphere.

Artist Tuyet Mai is happy and proud to answer any question of foreign visitors about traditional musical instruments of Vietnam. She always tries at her best to help international audiences understand the basics of Vietnam’s traditional musical instruments.

She said she is very happy to receive positive feedback from spectators. Many foreign visitors have returned home and sent an email to her to share their feelings about Vietnamese music. They also promised to introduce her address to their friends if they came to Vietnam.

Tuyet Mai teaches a foreign visitor to play Klongput.

Tuyet Mai said it was very hard to build TrucMai House. “In 1992, we moved from the Vietnam Song and Dance Theatre in Hanoi to the Bong Sen Song and Dance Theatre in HCM City. It is lucky that we have a stable job. However, to support our life and to widely advertise traditional music, we are the first to perform traditional music at restaurants and then at a small theatre at the Thong Nhat Palace (HCM City). After 12 years, we opened TrucMai House,” she recalled.

After 17 years going their own road, Tuyet Mai and Dinh Linh are very glad to see a large number of people who also love traditional musical instruments and music. The couple’s passion for traditional music has been inherited by their two sons, who also join in the family shows. The youngest son, Dang Nhat Minh, 13, is studying bamboo flute in China.

After five years of operation, the couple plan to turn TrucMai House into a club for fans of traditional music. Tuyet Mai has opened experimental classes to teach traditional music at home in the morning and the evening on Saturday and Sunday.

“I hope more and more Vietnamese young people will learn about traditional music. I hope this club will help preserve the Vietnamese character in music,” she said.

VietNamNet/VNE