Việt Nam News

Nun Thích Nữ Quảng Phát has been known for inspiring hundreds of school students in the northern province of Thái Bình to read books at a library she set up at Thiên Phúc Pagoda, where she acts as the head nun.

A biography on the 50-year-long career of Meritorious actress and cải lương (reformed opera) performer Mỹ Châu, who now lives in Atlanta, Georgia, USA was recently released in HCM City.

Nguyễn Ngọc Hiếu, a blind man, is the director of two massage parlours in HCM City, creating jobs for some 30 people who share his plight.

The ancient rules of Xoan singing state that only a man can hold the position of  the head of a xoan singing guild. But Nguyễn Thị Lịch in the northern province of Phú Thọ has become the first female folk artist to lead the provincial xoan guild, the first woman to hold such a position in the thousands-year history of xoan singing.

Glorious jade sceptres, precious terracotta mythical creatures and gigantic bronze drums are few among 300 artefacts being showcased in public for the first time.

Trịnh Công Sơn walking street, some 900m long, is a fitting tribute to its namesake, the late musician Trịnh Công Sơn (1939-2001), a celebrated Vietnamese musician, songwriter, painter and poet.

Hà Nội was developed by the French colonialists as the administrative centre of Indochina along the same lines as Haussmann’s Paris. The result is the beautiful city we so much love, a happy mix of native vernacular and French metric logic. Today Hà Nội is undergoing its own Haussmannian transformation, as the old makes way to the new. Let's hope that the city doesn't forget its roots.

The Centre for Mental Illness and National Devotees in northern Hải Dương province has applied a new therapy to treat patients - teaching them skills like making brooms and mats.

Over a history of nearly 100 years in Việt Nam, and Hà Nội in particular, the French left a valuable, unique and advanced heritage of French architecture and structures in Hà Nội.

In recent years, the land along the inter-village roads in the coastal district of Hải Hậu in the northern province of Nam Định has been planted with flowers—indicating that people have not only focused on surviving by building, fishing and raising rice, but also on beautifying their community.

Born in poverty, Doctor Nguyễn Văn Xáng has worked his way up to become the director of a hospital. The doctor’s vast collection of pens is an enjoyable hobby and a way
to remember his search for knowledge.

Nguyễn Anh Tuấn, a Hanoian hip-hop dancer finds dancing more than his passion when he volunteers to teach hip-hop to youngsters in Việt Nam and other Southeast Asian countries.

The collection of 23 sắc phong (king's certificates to confer titles on people) dating from the 18th century at Trấn Vũ Temple, Long Biên District, Hà Nội, were recognised as rare and precious documents.

Việt Nam is in the final stages of preparing a dossier for re-nomination of World Heritage Site (WHS) Hạ Long Bay to include Cát Bà Archipelago for submission to UNESCO by September this year.

The cajuput tree—tràm in Vietnamese—is known for its spongy bark, white flowers and its oil that is prized for its usefulness in aromatherapy. Now a local man creatively uses it as a medium for producing art.

Sixty-year-old nun Phạm Thị Kim Sáng has raised eight orphans and poor children in the past 15 years despite her own difficult life.

We visited historical relics in a special complex bearing remarks of the once famous area, Phố Hiến, on the right bank of the Hồng (Red) River.

Mã Châu silk craft, mulberry farming and silkworm breeding have roots some five centuries ago in Duy Xuyên District in the central province of Quảng Nam.  But the trade faded by the late 1990s. Recently, however, the last local silk makers have revived the traditional craft while introducing modern techniques and marketing methods. Bùi Hoài Nam reports