Art & Entertainment News 11/5 Flamboyant Flower Festival 2015 opens in Hai Phong The fourth Flamboyant Flower Festival 2015 opened on May 9 to mark the 60th anniversary of Liberation Day of the northern port city of Hai Phong (May 13, 1955). The 10-day event features the heroic struggle of local residents in the two revolutionary wars and the achievements made the city in its new stage. Speaking at the ceremony, Chairman of Hai Phong municipal People's Committee Le Van Thanh declared the city one of the pioneers of reform. A number of strategic initiatives have been implemented in the city, including the Hai Phong International Port and Cat Bi International Airport, to stimulate economic development, Thanh said. Looking forward, Hai Phong aims to create a more favourable business climate to lure domestic and international investment, he added. The festival opened with many prominent events including drum performances, dragon dances and colourful parades involving thousands of residents and performers. Art performances by domestic and internationally-renowned artists and firework displays were highlights of the event. A number of sports and street dances were also part of the festival. Ha Long Carnival 2015 kicks off   The annual Ha Long Carnival 2015 kicked off in the northern province of Quang Ninh on May 8, featuring over 2,700 professional and amateur artists. They sang, danced and paraded on erected stages and along the 1,000m-long Hoang Quoc Viet road on the theme “Convergence of quintessence – Spread of smiles”. Visitors could watch 10 carriages of flowers and exciting performances by popular singers and art troupes at home and abroad. Twelve businesses have pledged to sponsor the event with a total of nearly 10 billion VND (476,000 USD), Vice Chairman of the Ha Long City People’s Committee Tran Trong Trung told a press conference in Hanoi earlier the same day. The event is expected to attract tourists to the world heritage site Ha Long Bay and other local cultural heritages.- Vietnamese culture highlighted in the US The Vietnamese culture has been brought closer to international friends as Vietnam was taking part in the 7 th Asian cultural heritage festival held on May 9 at Stony Brook University in New York. The festival introduced numerous outstanding destinations, traditional long dresses (Ao Dai), fine arts and traditional dances from Vietnam. International friends lavished great praise on the Vietnamese culture through exhibited products and dances performed by Vietnamese students in the host country. Hordes of delegations from Asian countries’ permanent missions to the United Nations (UN) attended the event alongside Asian communities studying and working in New York or nearby such as Vietnam, Japan, the Republic of Korea, India, Thailand, the Philippines and China. The festival created opportunities for participants to popularise their unique cultural features and heritages, contributing to promoting solidarity and mutual understanding among nations. Book fair to promote culture of reading in capital Publishing houses and firms catering to children will hold a book fair at the Vietnam youth academy occasioned by International Children’s Day, June 1. The event's board of organisers said there would be a variety of activities such as introduction of new books and presenting of cultural products for children. Many products and services at the fair will also offer 50 percent discounts. Visitors will get an opportunity to get involved in games and other activities that aim to improve intelligence and life skills. For instance, there will be Bizkids Corner, which will teach children how to manage property, a seminar on methods of taking care of children with the participation of psychologists and sociologists, and a free consultation on nutrition and dental health for children. Conservationists discuss Hue carvings The country's leading conservationists gathered in Hue over the weekend to discuss the poetry that is carved on wooden and concrete heritage buildings in the former royal capital city. Despite Han Chinese characters being used for transcription of the poems, they are still different from carved calligraphy found on ancient buildings in China, the conservationists agreed. According to Vu Thi Minh Huong, chairwoman of the national committee for Memory of the World Programmes, carved poetry on imperial buildings in Hue and the Nguyen dynasty (1802-1945) woodprints included poems for the general public. "This gives a unique feature to those transcriptions, as they were not only for the rulers. They reflected the literature under the Nguyen dysnasty," she said. The conservationists showed their admiration for the large number of poems, as well as the diversity of poems found on the buildings. Carved poems can be seen at Thai Hoa Palace, The To Temple, Hung To Temple inside the former imperial palace, as well as in mausoleums of Kings Minh Mang, Thieu Tri, Dong Khanh, and Duc Duc, and in pagodas and the residences of royal families and mandarins. Member of UNESCO Viet Nam, Dang Van Bai, noted that Hue, or its heritage buildings, are a museum of the country's ancient poetry. The uniqueness of the poetry comes from its content, the special carving techniques, and the transcription style. A poem by King Thieu Tri, for instance, was transcribed in the shape of a ship's rudder, with words carved in a circle and lines of words travelling outwards from the centre of the circle. While the poem has 56 words, the rudder transcription generates 128 ways of reading and all present a complete and meaningful poem. The conservationists agreed that conservation of the buildings is the prerequisite for the preservation of the poetry system. They also offered their strong consensus that more study and documentation of the poetry is necessary for profiling and presenting them prior to consideration of recognition by UNESCO. Son Doong to be featured live in ‘Good Morning America’ A crew from the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) is currently in Vietnam to prepare for its first-ever live program that accentuates the country’s natural places of interest. Last month the American broadcaster signed an agreement with authorities in Vietnam to feature the Southeast Asian country’s beauty spots in “Good Morning America,” a well-loved program watched by an average of six million subscribers every day. It will be the first time that ABC has reported live from inside one of the grottos located in the central Vietnamese province of Quang Binh. The two-hour show will also incorporate gorgeous videos of the UNESCO-recognized Ha Long Bay in the northern province of Quang Ninh; the Son River, which snakes its way through Quang Binh; and other idyllic rural charms of the country. The show is scheduled to air at 6:00 am on Wednesday next week in American time, or 6:00 pm the same day in Vietnamese time. Viewers in Vietnam will not be able to watch the show live, but can still enjoy its re-broadcast on ABC’s website, at abc.go.com. Vietnam’s Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam will join a live interview with the ABC crew on Wednesday right from inside the grotto. Laser light show illuminates Hanoi Opera House An outdoor laser light show and music foundation at the Hanoi Opera House on May 8 from 7:30 to 8:30 p.m. presented a three dimensional teat to spectators  and was the highlight of the Europe Days in Vietnam festivities. The electrifying animated show allowed spectators to immerse themselves in European architecture and creative imagery symbolizing the development of relations between the European Union (EU) and Vietnam over past decades. The most striking part of the show was the colourful lasers that illuminated the beautiful façade of the Opera House, creating a stunning view. The laser light show was held to mark Europe Day on May 9 and the 25th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the EU and Vietnam. Vietnamese poet auctions collection for Nepal Philippines-based Vietnamese poet Nguyen Phan Que Mai has submitted her noted collection, The Secret of Hoa Sen, to an auction on ebay, along with another 175 items by authors from around the world, to raise money for victims of the recent earthquake in Nepal. As the only Vietnamese representative at the "Authors for Nepal" auction, the opening bid for the collection was set at US$30.7. The auction sale price will be finalised in a couple of days. The collection consists of 52 poems written in Vietnamese and English, which were among the most favourite brain-children of the poet. Mai has received various domestic awards and her works have been translated into many languages, including English, French, Spanish, German and Cebu. The proceeds from the auction will be transferred to the International Committee of the Red Cross. The "Authors for Nepal" campaign is modelled on earlier fundraising efforts, such as "Authors for Japan", set up after the Japanese earthquake in 2011, and "Authors for the Philippines", following the typhoon in 2013.  VNA/VNS/VOV/TT