Vietnam News Agency photojournalist Chu Chi Thanh has published a photographic account of the Vietnam War, with introductions and footnotes in English and Vietnamese.

Entitled “Memories of the War,” photographs in the book were taking in North Vietnam between 1967 and 1973. Many of the photographs have yet to be seen by the public.

Thanh said he wanted to remind young people across the world not only of the suffering and hardship that was experienced during the war, but also the heroism and magnanimity.

He said he also wanted to give American veterans an honest no-holds-barred account of the war, which began in 1954 and ended in 1975.

"I myself learnt a lot about the war through the lens of a young war photographer who was little more than 20 years old at the time and experienced the war from a Vietnamese perspective," Thanh said.

The artistic power of the photographs in the book lies in their unembellished warts-and-all honesty, poet Huu Thinh said.

"Through it, we can see both artistic creativity and publicity. It is a factual account and yet at the same time it represents the soul of an artist."

With the support of HCM City Museum of War Remnants, photos in Thanh's book have been exhibited in a number of southern provinces and cities over the last two years, with visitor numbers reaching 500,000 annually, according to Huynh Ngoc Van, the museum's director.

"From the critical viewpoint of the lens and Thanh's access as a war correspondent to all corners of the North, we can truly see and experience, as he did, the US air war of destruction against northern Vietnam from the 17th parallel northwards," Van said.

At the end of the book, Thanh included private letters written by family members, friends and colleagues, which give a further incite into the war-time sentiments of those unwillingly caught up in the struggle for freedom.

SourceVNA

Local officials from Vietnam and South Korea signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on bilateral tourism cooperation in Seoul on Friday.

The MoU was signed by Vietnamese Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Hoang Tuan Anh and his Korean counterpart Yu In-chon during Anh’s working visit to the East Asian country.

Earlier, the two ministers had talks in which they discussed ways to strengthen bilateral exchanges in the fields of culture and tourism.

Yu In-chon told Anh that South Korea will send more delegations to Vietnam and work closely with Vietnam’s competent agencies to boost tourism in the coming time, helping deepen the mutual understandings between the two peoples.

Yu said he believe Vietnam, with its beauty and rich potentials in tourism, would become the top destination for Korean tourists.

For his part, Anh reckoned that Vietnam and South Korea have great potentials of tourism cooperation.

South Korea is a promising tourism market and Vietnam is making efforts to lure tourists from the country, Anh said.

On the occasion, Anh invited Yu to visit Vietnam.

It is expected that a number of delegations from South Korea will come to Vietnam for cultural events in commemoration of the 1,000th anniversary of Hanoi.

South Korea is one of the five countries posting the largest number of tourists to Vietnam, about 400,000 tourist arrivals each year.

Source:tuoitrenews

The “Trans-Asia bridge” festival will kick off in the central province of Quang Tri on July 23.

The five-day festival will see the performances given by nine domestic art troupes and a number of sports and arts delegations from Laos, Thailand, Myanmar and China.

The event will also include the “Green Road No. 9” song, music and dance festival and local tourism promotion activities.

Source: Thanh Nien

At the 69th kilometer on the highway between Ho Chi Minh City and Vung Tau are scores of roadside stalls sellingbanh bao, the mouthwatering meat dumplings.

The story of the rather unimaginatively named dumpling 69 began with a humble stall opened here by a couple in the 1980s.

Luong Thi Minh Tuyet, the wife, noticed a dumpling stall run by a man named Ha opposite her house doing roaring business.

The couple decided to ask a veteran cook named Ba, Ha’s teacher, to teach them how to make Chinese dumplings.

“He knew a lot of recipes but did not open any eatery himself; he only taught others how to make the food,” Tuyet says.

“He was poor but had a big heart. No one knows where he has gone now.”

The couple set up a stall at the 69th kilometer on the highway -- in Long Thanh District, Dong Nai Province -- and soon their dumplings became very popular with drivers and tourists who would stop to buy.

They decided to label their stall “Dumpling 69” after hearing complaints from customers that there was no signboard to help them spot it.

“Dumpling 69” is said to be popular for its trademark sweet and rich taste.

“The cake is soft and chewy, the dough is not too dry that it causes one to choke, unlike other dumplings,” Huynh Minh Tien, a driver who often travels between HCMC and Vung Tau, says.

“The stuffing does not have an unpleasant odor like other dumplings and the skin has the sweet and refreshing taste of pineapple leaves which makes you want to eat more.”

But more and more stalls calling themselves “Dumpling 69” began to mushroom along the stretch of highway that the couple decided to register themselves as “Thanh Long 69.”

Other sellers too followed suit and now there are scores of trademarks, all ending with 69 -- Huynh Mai 69, Thanh Thanh 69, Co Can 69.

But Tuyet says trademarks are not enough to stand out in the crowd.

“You need to have the experience to know how to mix the stuffing and dough to create a certain chewy texture and taste to make the customers unable to forget your products.”

She now has three shops and a kitchen with 15 staff and sells 8,000 cakes daily.

Some of the others are also doing well. Thanh Thanh 69, which has been in business for the past two decades, is open from 5am to 7pm every day and sells up to 1,000 dumplings a day.

But it takes hard work and smarts, according to the cake makers.

“It takes me the whole day to make a few dozen kilograms of pachyrhizus extract to make the stuffing,” a Thanh Thanh 69 worker says.

The shops also face fierce competition from one another. The cakes, costing VND5,000 (26 US cents) to VND10,000, require the sellers to spot potential customers faster than their competitors.

“If I am slow, the customer will head to another stall,” Can, the owner of a stall, says.

“You have to compete hard to do business here.”

But all this does not dissuade the shopkeepers as more and more people are developing the habit of stopping at one of these roadside stalls to taste what has become one of Long Thanh’s specialties.

“If you pass through Long Thanh District without drinking fresh cow’s milk or eating dumpling 69, you don’t know what you are missing,” a frequent traveler between HCMC and Vung Tau says.

Source:tuoi tre

Hanoi tourism authorities will launch two new tours of the 1,000-year-old old quarter, home to 36 old streets named after guilds, by electric vehicles.

The service, scheduled to begin either June 27 or next month, is a brainchild of the Hoan Kiem District People’s Committee and Dong Xuan Joint Stock Co..

They will use 20 battery-powered coaches, each of which can carry 12 passengers, on two routes around the old quarter.

One will take people around Hoan Kiem Lake, or the Lake of the Returned Sword, and the other to some of the guild streets, food courts, and historical relics.

They will leave at 20-minute intervals from 8:30am to 11pm every day.

A ride will cost from VND10,000 (53 US cents) to VND30,000.

The old quarter, situated near the equally historic Hoan Kiem Lake, was created in the 11th century, when the 100-hectare area was home to 36 guilds, each of which gave its name to a street. Thus, there is a Hang Bac Street which was once home to silversmiths and a Hang Mam Street named for fish sauce.

There are 4,000 houses here, a fourth of which are more than 100 years old.

Source:tuoitre

Vietnamese Ngo Thanh Minh has won a “grand prize” in the amateur category in a global soccer-themed photography competition held by Sony Electronics Asia-Pacific.

The Soccergraphy contest opened in April last year to mark the Japanese consumer electronics giant’s official partnership with the International Federation of Association Football for the 2010 World Cup that is now under way in South Africa.

Minh’s photo, titled “Childhood 2,” also won a Sony Alpha DSLR camera package and a trip to South Africa to watch the World Cup.

The 33-year-old, based in the central city of Hue, has been working as a photographer for the past 15 years, and won a gold medal and a silver at international photo competitions in Singapore and Canada last year.

Soccergraphy was divided into amateur and professional categories and the only criterion for entries was that a photo should have at least one football in it.

The winning entries will be featured alongside works of world-renowned photographers in a specially-created photo book to celebrate the spirit of soccer.

The proceeds from the book’s sales will be donated to charity.

Source:tuoitrenews