Oct
02
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Bad things related to Firms’ gift skids for Mid-Autumn Festival
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As part of AAA Assurance’s program to help cheer up children at Nhi Dong 1 Hospital in District 1 for the Mid-Autumn Festival, clowns make balloons in different shapes for the happy kids.
The Youth Union of Vietnam Television channel VTV9 and firms such as AAA Assurance and Nutifood, presented gifts and organized entertainment activities for more than 200 children at Nhi Dong 1 Hospital.
The event held last Saturday gathered a number of performers and singers with entertainment programs. The company also presented the children with 3,000 textbooks and comics.
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Oct
02
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Sapa will keep the acient beauty
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Deep within the valleys and mountains of Vietnam’s furthest Northern reaches lies the remote hill town of Sapa. Most often viewed through the seemingly never ending carpet of mist, Sapa is a visual feast unmatched in Vietnam; on the one hand remote and distant and, on the other, searingly developed and commercial.
Certainly, part of Sapa’s aloof appeal must lie with the difficulty in reaching this former French hill station. Disembarking from the overnight train from Hanoi at Lao Cai station, visitors are treated to their first taste of Sapa’s visual richness in the sometimes dizzying forty minute minibus ride to the market town itself. Just caught through the thick morning mist, glimpses can be snatched of mountains as rich and green as anywhere on earth, with valley walls tiered with rice paddies like enormous wedding cakes stretching out into the clouds.
Of course, it would be wrong to suppose that Sapa first found life through the arrival of Europeans, or even the Vietnamese. Rather, this area has long been home to the various hill people who still live and work within this breathtaking landscape.
A boy and his buffalo - Photos: Simon Speakman Cordall
Today, Sapa’s narrow streets are both temporary home and business place to the H’mong, Dao, Giay, Pho Lu, and Tay people, whose traditional ethnic dress marks them out from the multitude of nations who come to Sapa to lose themselves in its landscape.
The women of these groups - who still speak of ‘the Vietnamese’ - think little of walking the twenty five kilometers to Sapa, their handmade goods carried on their backs in traditional wicker baskets to barter and trade with tourists. The hill people have proved themselves remarkably astute businesspeople and, while they might struggle with literacy, a working knowledge of English, French and a smattering of other languages is well within their reach. The trade in handicrafts has been a relatively lucrative one for the hill people, their own internal economies seemingly now permanently skewed towards the tourist trade.
Ethic minority women in colorful costumes
Sapa itself has also, quite literally, found new shape within the reflection of tourist’ expectations, it’s guesthouses and hotels lining the valley walls, each competing for the best views of the dazzling vista below. One unfortunate side effect of this competition for awe, has been the lax enforcement of the height limits at which buildings might be built to, leaving a nasty question mark over the future of Sapa’s already fading serenity.
However, if Sapa itself might be starting to give way in the face of advancing commercialism, its landscape remains stubbornly unflinching in the face of growing tourist numbers. Outside of Sapa, small boys ride their water buffaloes, the ethnic minorities work on their handicrafts and farmers toil in the gravity defying rice fields. There are endless ways of exploring the countryside of Sapa. However, one of the most rewarding can be to hire a local guide, often from one of the ethnic minority groups, who know all the places your guidebook has never have heard of.
Most guides, by their very nature, are also skilled mountaineers and are just at ease taking visitors on a three day ascent of Fansipan as they are taking them around Sapa’s surrounding villages. Alternatively, for those who prefer to immerse themselves in nature’s bounty with their knuckles white, there are any number of outlets offering cheap motorbike rental.
Commercial interests and the ever expanding appetites of 21st Century tourism may be starting to take their toll on Sapa, but the town itself, its people and its breathtaking scenery remain a highpoint on any Vietnam itinerary. See it while you can.
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Oct
02
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The chamber concert with the joining of Korean artists
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VietNamNet Bridge – Korean pianist Joo Eun Young and soprano Cho Hae Ryong – a familiar voice to Saigonese – will perform as part of a chamber performance organized by HCMC Ballet Symphony Orchestra and Opera at the city Opera House at 8 p.m. on October 9.
Pianist Joo Eun Young.
The show will provide works from Schumann, Brahms, Bernstein, Grieg and Gershwin and will be performed by artists of HBSO such as cellist Nguyen Tan Anh, pianist Ly Giai Hoa, clarinet Dao Nhat Quang and violinist Tang Thanh Nam.
The program will feature Grieg’s Sonata for violin and piano No.3, Schumann’s Adagio & Allegro in A Flat Major for Cello and piano, Bernstein’s Arias from opera Candide for
soprano and piano, Gershwin’s Preludes for clarinet and piano, Wieniawsky’s Polonais Brilliant for violin and piano and Brahms’s Piano Quartet No. 1 in G Minor.
Winning the First Prize at the Competition of Romantic Music 2007 in South Korea and certificate of merit at the Obraztsova International Vocal Competition in Russia 2000, Ryong has performed in Russia and South Korea. She frequently performs in HBSO concerts and is currently the voice coach for the HBSO Opera.
Soprano Cho Hae Ryong. - Photos: Courtesy of HBSO
Graduating with distinction from Vienna State Conservatory in 2000 and earning her Master’s with distinctions from Moscow Gnessin Academy in 2007, Young has won international awards and has appeared in concerts with Seoul, Vienna, and Vietnam. At present, she is a professor in the piano department in HCMC Conservatory of Music.
Tickets, priced at VND300,000, VND250,000 and VND150,000 per person and VND60,000 per students, are available at HCMC Ballet Symphony Orchestra and Opera Office, 3 Phan Van Dat Street, tel 08 3823 7419 and at the Opera House, 7 Lam Son Square in District 1.
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Exploding of 16 movies at lotal cinemas in Oct
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02/10/2012 08:30:51
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List of 11 national relics in Vietnam
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02/10/2012 08:27:41
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Vietnamese - born French show at Paris fashion week
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02/10/2012 08:26:20
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France will host ‘Du fleuve Rouge au Mékong' exhibition
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02/10/2012 08:24:55
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Huong River divers find treasure trove of antiquities
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02/10/2012 08:22:26
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Discovered Bottomless lakes in Phong Nha
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02/10/2012 08:21:14
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“Chu Van An – an eternal teacher” book was introduced to reader
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02/10/2012 08:19:25
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Welcomes the appearance of “Mai Vang award 2012”
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02/10/2012 08:18:07
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Cracking Bamboo 2012 festival to open
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02/10/2012 08:14:08
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