Lena Hermann, a 25-year-old German student, has just inaugurated a photo exhibition of the Vietnamese people and their country titled “Made in Viet Nam” in the University of Berlin, Germany.

A quartet from Japan, the Midori Goto, will make a performance tour of localities across Vietnam from December 22-30.

The painting exhibition “Bobbing with Lotus” has been organized to celebrate artist Nguyen Thi Tam’s 70th birthday and mark her 50-year career of painting at the Ho Chi Minh City’s Exhibition House 92, Le Thanh Ton Street, District 1, from December 22 to January 1st.

Visitors to the Vietnam Museum of Ethnology will be able to learn more about the daily lives of the Pa Then ethnic minority people in a new photo exhibition. Entitled The Voice of Pa Then, the exhibition features 80 photographs taken by Frenchman Sebastien Laval in March 2005 and October 2006.

Italy Television RAI has invited Vietnamese’s top designer Minh Hanh as a guest to join a TV show named Alle Felde Del Kilimangiaro produced on December 18 and broadcast during Christmas Eve 2006.

Pham Thanh Hang picked up the Vietnam Cup and VND50 million in cash at the awards ceremony for the Vietnam Model Awards 2006 on Dec 16.

A top Vietnamese designer and two young colleagues will dress up a bevy of beauties for Thanh Nien’s annual fashion and music bash scheduled for Dec. 30-31.

A documentary on the war in Vietnam entitled ‘Chat Doc Da Cam’ (Agent Orange) produced by Japanese Masako Sakata is now on screen at the 28th Latin America New Film International Film Festival in La Habana, Cuba.

More than 4,000 students from universities in Hanoi gave a special art and sport performance at the opening ceremony of the 13th ASEAN University Games (AUG 13) at Hang Day Stadium on the evening of December 16.

About 300 personal files and thousands of mementoes from soldier who fought on southern battlefields are now being showcased at the Ho Chi Minh Museum in Hanoi.

Vietnamese duo Luu Thi Thanh and Nguyen Hai Thao stared to beat Myanmar opponents 2-0 in the women’s double gold medal match, winning the third gold medal for Vietnam at the 15th Asian Games in Doha, Qatar.

After studying two types of Vietnamese traditional theatre, Tuong (Classical Drama) and Cheo (Popular Opera), Eleanor Clapham is getting ready to hold her first official show at the Hanoi Opera House on December 22.

By Susan Ransdell

Artist Yuk King Tan doesn’t view fire as a cheap aes-thetic device but as a tool that can express the ineffable.

Vu Thi Nguyet Anh has partly eased the drought for gold medals of the Vietnamese sports delegation at the 15th Asian Games as she won the second gold medal after a 6-1 overwhelming victory over Malaysian Vasantha Marial Anthony in the final, which ended minutes ago.

Painter Vu Giang Huong has recently made debut a book entitled her name. The book which introduces 44 gouache paintings, 31 oil paintings, 8 woodprints and 43 silk paintings, records the tireless art life of painting of this female painter.

Dang Hong Ha took the bronze in the 10m moving target event at the Doha Asian Games yesterday, which helped the women's shooting team to a silver medal.

The Vietnamese women’s sepak takraw team broke a jinx, winning their first gold medal, after coming short up at the 2002 Busan Games, the 2005 world championship and the 2005 Southeast Asian Games, as they beat their bitter rivals, Thailand, 2-1 in an epic final of the 2006 Asian Games in Doha, Qatar, just hours earlier.

Vietnamese disabled sportspeople have bagged seven golds, 20 silvers and 22 bronzes from the ongoing Far East and South Pacific Games for the Disabled (FESPIC Games) in Malaysia.

The women's football team increased their ranking from 35th to 31st in the World Football Governing Body (FIFA)'s monthly table.

Ngo Lan Phuong has won a third prize for Vietnam in the women's individual event of the 14th Asian Chinese Chess Championships, which ended in the southern coastal province of Ba Ria-Vung Tau on November 7.

Fifteen wives of APEC leaders will watch water puppetry on November 19 at the Thang Long Water Puppetry Theatre.

Fashion designer Minh Hanh and her employees at the Vietnam Fashion Design Institute (Fadin) in Ho Chi Minh City took more than eight months to make the 21 traditional ao dai costumes and turbans (khan dong) that the APEC leaders will wear for a short time at the closing ceremony of the APEC economic leaders’ meeting on Sunday.

Saigon Pesticides Company is set to sign a sponsorship deal with Ho Chi Minh City’s cycling federation Saturday to support the local women’s cycling team.

Vietnamese pop singer My Tam left on Oct. 9 for the Republic of Korea to begin her next music project, which could help her become an international singer.

An exhibition of women’s jewelry from ancient times opened on Oct. 12 at the Southern Women’s Museum in Ho Chi Minh City.

French conductor Olivier Grangean and violinist Maryvonne Le Dizeswill shared the stage with the HCM City Symphony Orchestra in a concert performance on Oct. 9 as part of a cultural cooperation program between France and Viet Nam.

The Vietnamese women’s football team will have two friendlies against China on November 10 and 12, during their training tour in the country, reported the Sports Daily.

The Thai Tuan Textile Company is busy designing and making 600 ao dai for the upcoming Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit in Ha Noi.

What could be a better way to celebrate Christmas and New Year than sending your friends, clients or colleagues one of the special cards made by disadvantage children of the Saigon Children’s Charity?

The 40-piece National Orchestra of the Republic of Korea (RoK) will perform at the Hanoi Opera House on November 3 in a concert with Vietnamese pop singer, Thanh Lam, to salute the upcoming APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting.

Mrs. Jan Johnston and the staff of the Canadian consulate general in HCMC sat down together over the weekend discuss how to set up an impressive booth for selling goods of the country at the annual charity bazaar early next month.

Viet Nam’s fashion models have gained permission from the Ministry of Home Affairs to form a national association.

Artist of Merit Tran Tuyet Minh held her solo piano performance in Hanoi on October 18 as one of the activities to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Hanoi Conservatory of Music.

Southeast Asian Games champion Nguyen Hoang Ngan won Viet Nam's first-ever silver medal in the World Karate Championships, which ended on Oct. 15 in Finland.

In October 3th 2006, after a period of implementing the quality management process on the basis of the international standards, the Women's House of Culture of Ho Chi Minh City was officially acknowledged to achieve the Quality Management System ISO 9001:2000 by the United Kingdom's BVQI Organization.

Isabelle de Valvert of France is performing her unique brand of jazz at Le Club in the Sofitel Metropole Ha Noi every evening from Oct. 3 to the end of November.

As reported the Vietnamese pop singer Doan Trang has attended the Hattori Memorial Music Festival 2006 in Osaka Japan. The festival closed on October 4.

After more than one year, Radio the Voice of Vietnam and Quang Nam People’s Committee jointly motivated and launched a competition of designing the Vietnamese Heroic Mothers’ Statue – taking archetype of Vietnamese heroic mother Nguyen Thi Thu.

The International Football Federation (FIFA) will strongly invest in Vietnam, Thailand and Myanmar to help Southeast Asian female football to keep up with the regional level of football, according to Michell Chai, a media and communications official of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC).

Thousands of people turned up in droves to join the 7th Terry Fox Run at the Thien Quang Lake in Ha Noi on Sep. 24 to raise money for cancer research in Viet Nam.

Thuy Dung, the women’s tennis champion at the recent National Sport Games, has agreed to represent Vietnam at the 15th Asian Games (Asiad) in Qatar later this year.

The Bac Ninh provincial Department of Culture and Information, in cooperation with the Institute of Culture and Information has basically completed a file to submit to the UNESCO for recognition of Bac Ninh folk song as an oral and intangible masterpiece of humanity.

Dinh Thi Tham Poong is known for the fusion of folk style and modernity in her paintings. Poong is exhibiting her latest works at the Art Vietnam Gallery – 30 Hang Than street, Hanoi. Nature is, once again, the main theme in her paintings.

The Vietnamese women’s sepak takraw team won a silver medal at the King's Cup World Sepak Takraw Championships which concluded in Thailand on September 8.

Truong Thanh Hang continued to beat her teammate in the national team to win a gold medal in women’s 1,500 metres, breaking her previous national record at national track and field contest at the National Sports Games in Da Nang on September 12, according to Ho Chi Minh City Sports newspaper.

Written and directed by veteran Dang Nhat Minh, the film, Dung Dot, Ben Trong Da Co Lua (Don’t Burn, It Already Has Fire Inside) is based on the diary of fallen doctor Dang Thuy Tram.

At the musical exchange performance within the scope of the recent culture week of Viet Nam organized in the end of August in Phnom Penh, Cambodian singer Sun So Vanari made Viet Nam’s artists so surprise by Vietnamese songs that she sang fluently in Vietnamese language. Nobody believed that she is a Cambodian singer because of her standard Vietnamese pronunciation.

The freshly-crowned Miss Vietnam Mai Phuong Thuy on September 4 left for Poland to participate in the world beauty pageant.

The host country Viet Nam’s athletes won the Asian Bodybuilding and Fitness Championships for the first time with five golds, two silvers, and one bronze.

Nguyen Thi Thu Cuc from Can Tho has become the first athlete to win a gold medal at the national track and field contest at the National Sports Games, according to the Sports Daily.