Category: Fashion

The fireworks teams from France and Italy have been selected to compete in the final night of the Da Nang International Firework Festival (DIFF) 2023, the organisation board announced on June 25.

According to Vice Chairwoman of the municipal People’s Committee Ngo Thi Kim Yen, who is also head of the organisation board, the jury found it difficult to choose the two teams for the final as all the eight teams have shown endless creativity in their eye-catching fireworks performances which left a deep impression on the audience.

The French and Italian teams combined music and fireworks in an artistic and smooth form, and their fireworks displays are very consistent with the rhythm and the emotion of the music, said composer Nguyen Duc Trinh, Chairman of the Vietnam Musicians’ Association, a member of the jury.

According to the draw result, the Italian team will perform first, and the French team’s display will close the DIFF 2023.

This year, the organisation board of DIFF 2023 has decided to double the prize value. The champion will receive a prize of 20,000 USD, while the runner-up will receive 10,000 USD.

Additionally, two sub-prizes worth 3,000 USD each will be presented to the most creative team and the team that receives the most votes from the audience.

The final night will be broadcast live on VTV1 channel of Vietnam Television at 8:pm on July 8./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

An event was held in Vientiane on last Friday to mark the traditional Chinese Dragon Boat Festival with participants immersed in Chinese culture, customs and history.

The festival, also called Duanwu Festival, is traditionally celebrated on the fifth day of the fifth month on the Chinese lunar calendar.

The event, organized by the China Cultural Center in Laos which collaborated with the Department of Planning and International Cooperation under the Lao Ministry of Information, Culture and Tourism, featured activities such as making Zongzi, the glutinous rice dumplings wrapped in bamboo or reeds, and watching a documentary about the history of Duanwu Festival.

The event allowed participants to experience Chinese culture, understand the similarities and differences between the food cultures of Laos and China, and increase the mutual friendship and trust between the peoples of the two countries.

Source: Lao News Agency

Chinese Cultural Centre in Laos in cooperation with the Department of Planning and International Cooperation, Ministry of Information, Culture and Tourism and the Department of the Chinese Language of the Faculty of Letters of the National University of Laos held an activity to promote China’s Tuan Wu Festival in Vientiane on June 16.

Tuanwu Festival, also known as Dragon Boat Festival, or Double Fifth Festival, is celebrated on the 5th day of the 5th lunar month. The day is observed in China and a number of countries, mostly in Asia, including Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, Japan, and Korea.

The event aimed to enrich the participants’ knowledge of the Chinese food culture, and promote mutual understanding, mutual trust and friendship between peoples of the two nations.

The participants were also given the opportunity to learn how to wrap banana-leaf rice dumplings and tasted rice dumplings.

Source: Lao News Agency

A Vietnamese street food festival entitled “Ici Vietnam Festival” was held on June 17 at Monge Square in District 5, Paris by the Vietnamese Association in France (UGVF) and the Vietnam Youth Association in France (UJVF).

This is the third year the festival has been organised, offering visitors opportunities to taste popular Vietnamese dishes and fruits. This year, visitors can also enjoy contemporary music, with the excitement of electronic music, pop and rap, performed by French-Vietnamese DJ-beatmakers.

They can also find books, meet with writers, and play Vietnamese folk games. On this occasion, Vinfast, a subsidiary carmaker of Vietnamese conglomerate Vingroup, displayed its latest electric vehicles.

According to Jérôme Tham Vo My, a member of the festival’s organising committee, in 2022, the one-day festival attracted nearly 10,000 visitors.

He hopes that with the participation of about 30 businesses, this year’s event would attract more visitors than last year.

Ngo Minh Duong, owner of Thanh Binh Jeunes supermarket chain, said that the products he brought here were all from Vietnam, such as sugarcane juice, coconut water, lychee, mango, coffee, and tea.

The company also cooperates with the Graine de riz – Grain de vie Association to raise funds for disadvantaged children and families in Vietnam and Laos.

Ici Vietnam Festival is the idea of a group of young Vietnamese-French people who wish to organise festivals in various fields of film, art, painting and cuisine to promote Vietnamese culture./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

The Khanh Hoa provincial People’s Committee on June 17 exchanged Memoranda of Understanding with partners on building a film studio and making films in the south-central coastal province.

The committee and Sun Group signed an MoU on cooperation on film studio construction. It also inked another with VietinBank on investment and funding for suitable film projects to be implemented in the province.

Nha Trang – Khanh Hoa Tourism Association and Hoan Khue Film Production Joint Stock Company signed an MoU on investment, production and promotion of the film project “Ngay xua mot chuyen tinh” (Once upon a time – A love story) and another with Vietnamese Images Research and Promotion Joint Stock on investment, production and promotion of the film project “ Cham vao hanh phuc” (Touching Happiness).

The MoU exchange formed part of the conference on tourism brand development via cinema for Khanh Hoa province.

Speaking at the opening of the conference on June 17, Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Nguyen Van Hung emphasised that although Vietnam has diverse natural landscapes and cultural identities, it has not yet attracted many foreign film crews.

He said the promotion of destinations through cinematographic works is still modest with few films having been made.

He called on initiatives to combine tourism and cinema more effectively, strongly promoting the images of Vietnam in general and Khanh Hoa province in particular.

Minister Hung suggested Khanh Hoa province soon build, complete and effectively implement mechanisms and policies to attract investment in cinema and tourism.

Many delegates at the conference agreed that Khanh Hoa has a lot of potential to become an attractive destination for domestic and international investors to develop tourism combined with cinema.

Chairman of the Khanh Hoa provincial People’s Committee Nguyen Tan Tuan said that the locality always welcomes and commits to creating favourable conditions for domestic and international filmmakers when investing in art activities in the province./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

Many traditional festivals and rituals have been revived across the capital city of Hanoi, with the community playing a decisive role.

Lang Pagoda Festival, a traditional Spring Festival of people living by the To Lich River held in the third month of the lunar calendar, is an example.

This year, for the first time in 70 years, all the folk rituals that made the Lang Pagoda Festival a unique event in the past have been restored.

Being built in the 11th century, Lang pagoda has always been a famous pagoda in Hanoi for its wide space, various antiques and Buddhist statues. The Spring festival at the pagoda is organised to show the gratitude to King Ly Than Tong (1116 – 1138) – the fifth king of the Ly Dynasty, and monk Tu Dao Hanh (1072-1116). It was a lively spring festival of the whole area that attracted people living on the sides of To Lich River nearby to attend. The festival involves ritual ceremonies and traditional games like swinging, wrestling, chess playing, tuong and cheo performances, among others.

For a long time, not all of the old rituals during the festival were carried out. However, this year, the organising committee has determined to bring back all traditional rituals of the festival such as “Te le” (offering), “Do Ha” (palanquin parade on the river) and “Dau Than” (fighting between gods). Every ritual has a unique meaning based on myths about Tu Dao Hanh.

Ha Anh Tuan, vice chairman of Dong Da district People’s Committee said the revival of traditional rituals at the Lang Pagoda Festival is of great significance, creating a distinctive feature of the city.

The same situation is seen in many other festivals in Hanoi, such as the festival of the five Moc villages, Dong Co Temple Festival, Thap Tam Trai (Thirteen Villages) Festival and Tan Vien Son Thanh (Tan Vien Mountain Saint) festival. The revival of rituals is made possible thanks to the active engagement of local communities. Local residents enthusiastically take part in discussions on restoring the rituals and choose people to perform the ceremony. Bui Thi Huong Thuy, deputy head of the Heritage Management Office under the city’s Department of Culture and Sports, highly appreciated the role of the community in assisting the unit set up dossiers for national intangible cultural heritage and helping localities restore ancient rites. According to Thuy, many festivals and traditional rituals have been lost in the flow of time, causing regret among local communities. Therefore, when localities want to revive them, local residents are eager to join in the work.

As the national cultural centre, Hanoi has put an emphasis on investment in cultural development. The city’s Party Committee has issued a programme and a resolution on cultural development.

With 1,206 traditional festivals held throughout the year, particularly in Spring, Hanoi considers them a great resource to attract tourists to the city. The capital city is among localities with the richest cultural heritage in Vietnam, with 1,793 intangible cultural heritage items, including three UNESCO-recognised Intangible Cultural Heritages of Humanity, one on UNESCO list of Intangible Cultural Heritage in need of Urgent Safeguarding and one World Documentary Heritage./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency