A seminar on training and developing traditional music during integration will be held in Hanoi on April 25th and 26th by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism. The seminar aims to assess: the quality of traditional music training at music training establishments nationwide over the past year; lecturers and facilities for study and research at current music training establishments; methods of traditional music training in music training establishments; current cooperation with foreign establishment in [...]

A family in Hanoi is holding on to an egg their chicken laid which is 1.8 centimeters long, some 0.3 centimeters shorter than the current world recorder holder for smallest egg, VnExpress reported Tuesday. Pham Huy Tai in Ba Dinh District said his chicken laid the egg on Sunday, adding that it was the first time it laid an egg so small, the VnExpress quoted the news website Kienthuc as saying. The egg weighs 2.8 [...]

A group of Vietnamese youngsters has created a comic strip that promises to take the battle to manga and Tintin A Vietnamese comic strip, whose first few episodes have been released online since December, has become a smash hit. “What a good storyline and amazing drawings,” “I’ll buy the comic as soon as it is published, for sure,” “I can recognize Hanoi and Vietnamese characters right away,” are some of the comments by gushing netizens [...]

Sitting outside my favorite Bia Hoi (fresh beer) spot last night I caught sight of a funny trio. Three Vietnamese men in their sixties were walking down the sidewalk abreast hand-in-hand-in-hand. They looked cheerful with an eye-wrinkling grin at me, but I was not much surprised as the first time in Hanoi. Almost everyday since then I have been greeted by similar examples of physical contact. Students walking arm in arm on the way to [...]

Hanoi restaurant Luna D’Autunno is doing something very unusual – having opera performances once a month in its informal setting. It was an initiative by Graham Sutcliffe, British conductor of the Vietnam National Opera Ballet. “I have been going to the restaurant regularly for a long time, and I asked the owner why there is no Italian music in such a wonderful space.” He has always wanted to take opera to the Vietnamese, who generally [...]

Nguyen Thi Ngo became a YouTube sensation last week when she climbed on the Vietnam’s Got Talent stage to criticize judges who had just eliminated her daughter. Singer Le Nguyen Quynh Anh’s performance, aired on February 12, was preceded with a clip of her family praising her talent in a way that many audience members felt was “rude” and “cocky.” Ngo, Anh’s mother, stood up for her daughter on stage and has since taken her [...]

Model Thai Ha was fined VND5 million (US$250) for undue exposure of her breasts while performing in a show called the Umbrella Party in Ho Chi Minh City on February 18. The show was held to promote a new AXE brand body spray for males. Photographs featuring Ha’s partially exposed breasts spread quickly on the Internet. Ha apologized to her fans saying the exposure, which happened while she was dancing, was “an inadvertent moment” that [...]

Huynh Anh Tuan, director of the renowned Idecaf Theater and the successful Golden Dragon Water Puppet Theater in Ho Chi Minh City, has for the past three months been seen every day at a construction site behind the city’s Labor Cultural Palace. Tuan moves quickly around, inspecting everything, including the toilets, and checking if his workers need more building materials. He is transforming a two-story building inside the palace that had housed a billiards center [...]

Traditional ceremonies in Vietnam are not generally known for their eroticism, so people are often to surprised to learn about a spring fertility festival held annually in Phu Tho Province. At midnight on the 12th day of the first Lunar month, the Du Di temple in Phu Tho Province’s Lam Thao District holds the only festival in northern Vietnam which is dedicated to a particular set of fertility rituals, reported The Thao Van Hoa newspaper. [...]

Khat vong Thang Long (Thang Long’s aspiration), a film about the king who founded the capital city of Hanoi, could not take a spot in the competition for Best Foreign Language Film at the 2012 Academy Awards. The film was out of nine finalists which was revealed on January 19, including Bullhead (Belgium), Monsieur Lazhar (Canada), Superclásico (Denmark), Pina (Germany), A Separation (Iran), Footnote (Israel), Omar Killed Me (Morocco), In Darkness (Finland) and Warriors of [...]