Singers Day to discuss celebrity responsibilities

HA NOI — The fifth Singers Day will be held on January 17-19 in the northern city of Ha Long.

The day is expected to attract around 200 domestic and overseas Vietnamese singers.

The conference will host a discussion on celebrity culture, their artistic responsibility to the community, artists and internet.

The Noi Vong Tay Lon (Joining Arms) charity gala will take place on January 19 to raise funds for local poor fishing people.

The previous Singers Day was held in Quy Nhon last year.

1,000th anniversary book takes music prize

HA NOI — A book on One-Thousand Year Thang Long - Ha Noi has won the highest prize of the year 2010 by the Viet Nam Musicians' Association.

The book consists of five parts covering court music, ca tru (ceremonial singing), traditional music, modern music and music criticism.

The awards ceremony was held last night at the headquarters of Radio Voice of Viet Nam in Ha Noi.

Viet Nam Orchestra charms in New York

NEW YORK — The National Symphony Orchestra of Viet Nam on Saturday performed at a peace concert held at New York City's Carnegie Hall together with artists from Japan, South Korea and the US.

Vietnamese Ambassador to the US Bui The Giang stressed that the event was a symbol of friendship and closer co-operation between peoples. The event also sent a message of peace and friendship to peoples all over the world, he said.

The concert was conducted by Japanese conductor Honna Tetsuji and featured South Korean teenage talented pianist Isadora Kim.

Photos convey kids' views on social safety

HCM CITY — Photographs taken by a group of fourth and fifth grade students to express their views on pedestrian safety are on show at an exhibition at a HCM City primary.

"Photovoice" at the Nguyen Minh Quang Primary School in District 9, which has more than 100 photos taken by eight children, is part of a project to use photographs to promote social change and improve the quality of life in communities.

Express delivery company FedEx and global NGO Safe Kids Worldwide, the sponsors, have already carried out this project in Brazil, Canada, China, India, South Korea, and the Philippines.

In Viet Nam, they launched it together with the Asia Injury Prevention Foundation in October.

They selected students for photography training and pedestrian-safety education who then took the photos.

"The project will help educate children about pedestrian and traffic safety," Mirjam Sidik, executive director of the Foundation, said.

The photos will be sent to several other schools in the city where they will be displayed for three days each. — VNS

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Sophie Paris donates helmets to primary school students

Sophie Paris Vietnam on Monday presented more than 200 helmets to students at Dong Ba Primary School in HCMC through the Asia Injury Prevention (AIP) Foundation’s Helmets for Kids program to help promote road safety among local youngsters.

AIP Foundation has distributed helmets to almost 1,000 students at the primary school since 2008 under the program. This year, Sophie Paris Vietnam donated bright magenta helmets to the first graders, while older students received replacement helmets.

“Education, safety and development of future generations is a priority at Sophie Paris, and the Helmets for Kids program is a great way to ensure students become safer, smarter road users,” said Nick Jonsson, general director of Sophie Paris Vietnam.

Since 2000, AIP Foundation’s school-based Helmets for Kids has provided students with helmets and road safety education. Parents and teachers are also educated about the importance of helmet use and the need to encourage students to wear their helmets during their daily rides to school.

Mirjam Sidik, executive director of AIP Foundation said, “Our goal with the Helmets for Kids program is to effectively make the helmet a part of the school uniform.”

Helmets for Kids is a public-private partnership platform, through which private corporations sponsor schools and local authorities in partnership with AIP Foundations to implement programs.  Nguyen Ngoc Tuong, vice chief of the HCMC Department of Traffic Safety Committee, quoted statistics from the National Traffic Safety Committee saying that traffic accidents caused 11,449 fatalities and 10,633 injuries last year.

“Most parents do not think about getting helmets for their children or encouraging them to wear helmets to prevent injuries,” Tuong said.

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Student film about baby burials wins contest

Four finalists in the fiction category at the award ceremony - Photo: Thanh Hang

A film inspired by a story about burial services for aborted fetuses won the “Magic of the Heart” student short film contest in HCMC that was announced on Saturday.

 The documentary film “Rest in peace, my baby!” by the team from REC, a student media club, won the first prize in the documentary category. The runner-up was “He” by Tran Minh Nhat, a student from the Radio and Television Broadcasting College II.

Nguyen Le Quyen, an REC member, said their film “Rest in peace, my baby!” was inspired by an old article about a man who conducted burial services for still born or aborted babies in Nha Trang.

“We had to struggle with so many problems to make the film. Sometimes we thought that maybe those babies didn’t want us to make a film about them. Yet we managed to finish it, because we had promised Phuc, the character in our film, to spread the message to the public to stop abortions.” The festival gave prizes for the second runner-up, the most-viewed film, and a special prize for best experimental film. The prizes were cash and scholarships to study multimedia at FPT Arena that hosted the competition.

To watch the films, visit www.youtube.com/user/lienhoanphim.

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Promising The Earth

The failure to realise promises of the people who won the bidding at the charity auction for the flood victims in central Vietnam at the “Miss Earth Contestants and Entrepreneurs” night on November 11 in HCM City has sparked a public outrage

The auction, broadcast live on television around the country and overseas, officially announced the winners’ names along with the amount bid which was over VND74 billion in total. It was expected that after deducting expenses and the original costs of auctioned items, the money would go to the HCM City Red Cross Chapter to distribute to the flood victims in central Vietnam. However, except for small donations that were not involved in the auction, the promises of tens of billions of dong were not honored by the auction winners.

The money never made it to the organizers and the HCM City Red Cross Chapter. The event organizers and the chapter could not even confirm who the winners were as they made their bids over the phone. The only successful bidder that they could be sure of was the director of Bao Long Company who was present in the auction room, and bought a wooden set of four sacred creatures at VND47.9 billion. For some reasons, he did a U-turn and did not pay the money he pledged but instead claimed to donate VND 1 billion.

Many netizens have pointed out the sheer lack of professionalism and preparation of the auction organizers. A serious auction team would have selected people with compassion and the financial ability to participate in the bidding and sent them the details about the authenticity of the items to be auctioned prior to the event. In addition, the organizers did not set out clear, specific provisions about the terms of participation and the obligation to honor commitment. They even allowed auction participants to bid via the telephone without identity checks. The organizers probably relied on the involvement of famous models and beauty queens as MCs to ensure the auction success!

The biggest tragedy is that an auction for a noble purpose has turned out to be a cruel joke. The organizers proved to be incompetent, but worse still the auction winners who broke their promises were just adding insult to injury for the flood victims, and toying with the trust of the television audience and the goodwill of the organizers. They made use of the auction for a brief mention of their company names on national TV and then backed away holding onto their purse-strings; or they regarded the charity auction as a joke. What’s funny about spitting in the face of charity work that brings relief to people who are suffering and homeless through no fault of their own. Have they ever thought about their compatriots in disaster or had a prick of conscience? These heartless souls should never be allowed to participate in a charity auction again. How could they take advantage of it and joke that way? They must be completely without a conscience, as a netizen has said.

This is not the first time that the winning bidders in charity auctions have reneged on their word and shirked their responsibility after appearing in front of the public and television camera. This time, the cheating and falsity has crossed the line. Decent people will not tolerate the despicable person who falsely reaches out a hand of support to the desperate flood victims only to pull it away when they try to take it.

Who can remain indifferent when they know that the flooding season has claimed nearly 200 lives and inflicted material damage worth tens of billions of dong? And still, there are people who can be so callous as to flirt with that pain.

Does that mean compassion these days has become the kind of virtue that you only read about and even a noble deed can be easily turned into a joke? I hope that it is not so, because so many people have come forward to voice their sympathy with those unfortunates, and expressed their outrage with the callers who used the charity auction as a free chance to polish their names, or just for fun.

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Ho Chi Minh City to host beer festival

Photo: Reuters

The first Vietnam Beer Festival will be held at the Military Zone 7 Stadium in Ho Chi Minh City from January 21.

Organized by Mekong Star JSC, it will feature a free flow of Coors Light, Budweiser, Saigon, and Hanoi beers, a buffet with Vietnamese and Western foods, DJs, and live bands.

The organizers hope to attract 5,000 people on each of the three days. An attempt will be made on the first night to break the Vietnamese record for the most people toasting at a time.

Each of the three days will have a different theme.

Tu hai giai huynh de (The whole world is a brotherhood) on the first day will aim to bring people together.

Nang ly cung nguoi dep (Cheers with the beauties) on the second day will feature female celebrities.

Famous Vietnamese footballers will drop by for a beer on the third day for Vui cung bong da (Have fun with football).

There will be lucky draws offering prizes of Iphone 4, Ipad, and Vespa LX125 scooter.

The fun will last from 4 pm to midnight on the opening day and from 10.30 am to midnight on the other days.

Tickets costing VND330,000 can be booked at http://beerfestivalvn.com/.
 

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Live shows heat up this week

Singer My Tam

Live shows of famous singers will heat up this week, with pop star Dan Truong’s show scheduled on Jan 13, My Tam’s on Jan 14, and Thanh Lam - Tung Duong duo’s on Jan 15.

Anh Tuyet and ATB’s singers will perform 2 night opera show of Kieu (based on Truyen Kieu – a literary masterpiece of great poet Nguyen Du) on Jan 15 and 16.

The operas were composed by Ta Dac, a guitar teacher, former deputy director of Hanoi public music school and member of Hanoi’s first electronic band Nang Moi.

Dan Truong will conduct the “Thien Duong Vang” show to introduce his three latest albums: Thien Duong Vang (Empty heaven), Nguoi Mien Tay (Western Vietnamese people) and DVD Dan Truong in America.

Meanwhile, top singer My Tam’s show is meant to mark her 10-year music career and celebrate her birthday at the same time.

In this show, My Tam will perform 30 well-known songs, most of which are re-played in blues, jazz and unplugged, etc. She also takes this occasion to seek funds to build 100 houses for residents in the central region and 600 scholarships to poor students.

Singers Thanh Lam and Tung Duong surprise people when choosing this time instead of Valentine to stage the show “Yeu” (Love) with songs performed in classic rock and other remix versions.

Dan Truong’s live show “Thien Duong Vang” at 8pm, Jan 13, at Trong Dong stage, 12B Cach Mang Thang Tam street, district 1

My Tam’s live show at 6.30pm, Jan 14, at Queen Plaza, 3-5 Hong Ha street, ward 9, Phu Nhuan district

Thanh Lam and Tung Duong’s live show “Yeu” at 8pm,Jan 15, at Ho Chi Minh Theatre
Ta Dac’s Opera show of Kieu at 8pm, Jan 15&16, at ATB bar, 197 Nguyen Van Troi street, Phu Nhuan district

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Experts praise Vietnamese folk values

Sing it: Don ca tai tu is performed for tourists in Tien Giang Province in the Mekong Delta. — VNS Photo Van Dat

HCM CITY — Don ca tai tu (music of the talented) should be recognised as an intangible heritage of the country to curb the impact of Western music's influence on indigenous musical forms, according to international scholars at a conference on preservation of the art form.

Speaking at the three-day event in HCM City, Professor Sheen Dae-cheol of South Korea said Don ca tai tu, which began 100 years ago, holds an important position in Viet Nam.

The history of Don ca tai tu is similar to Gagok of South Korea and Nanyin of China, both of which began as amateur music and developed into more sophisticated forms.

Don ca tai tu, however, has retained its original characteristics.

Because it does not require a stage, it quickly became popular in every corner of society and could be performed under a tree, in a house, on a boat, or under the moonlight.

The Korean professor said he was impressed with the musical instruments. Some of them have only one, two or three strings, such as the monochord, two-chord fiddle and the three-string fretless box spike lute.

"The feeling and soul of the Vietnamese people are embedded in tai tu music. The music, which is an invaluable heritage, applies the yin-yang theory of the East," he said.

"The value of gender equality is also mentioned in Don ca tai tu. Since it began, it has always been performed with the participation of both men and women. Everyone considers Don ca tai tu amateur music, but it is not amateur at all. It is noble amateur music. It deserves to be considered as a world cultural heritage," he added.

Dr Joe Peters of Singapore, who noted that Don ca tai tu was important to the Vietnamese people's life, said that video and audio clips on the art form could be found on the internet.

Prof Yamaguti Osamu of Taiwan's Nanhua University said improvisational music like Don ca tai tu appears in other countries, including India and, especially, Africa.

The music is transmitted orally and has no printed musical notation.

More recordings of the music must be done so that documents can be submitted to UNESCO and the art form can be approved and recognised as an intangible cultural heritage of the world.

Gisa Jaehnichen, a professor in the music department at University Putra Malaysia, praised the charm of Don ca tai tu and the instruments used in performance.

The music is traditionally played in informal venues, often in a close friend's home or in a neighbour's garden.

Its standard orchestra includes a dan tranh (16-string zither), a dan kim (two-chord guitar), a dan co (two-chord fiddle), a ty ba (pear-shaped, four-chord guitar), a doc huyen (monochord zither) and a flute.

Professor Tran Van Khe, musician Nguyen Vinh Bao, who are experts in Vietnamese traditional music, and other local artists said they were highly impressed about the knowledge of the foreign experts who spoke about Don ca tai tu at the conference.

Experts said that performing the music on a big stage or during tourism festivals, which has been done in recent years, was not true to its original nature. —VNS

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