A 27-year-old Vietnamese comic series based loosely on the popular 'Voltron' animated series of the 1980s is getting republished in Vietnam, stirring up excitement among a generation of readers while prompting worries about copyright infringement. Dung si Hesman (Hero Hesman) was a 160-volume comic series by ‘adaption arist’ Hung Lan. It was published for the first time in Vietnam in 1992. The sci-fi adventure superhero comic follows the protagonist, Hesman the robot, as he battles evil forces in the galaxy in a fictional future set in the 23rd century. It was a huge hit among Vietnamese children and youth at a time when entertainment options were scarce in the absence of computer games and the Internet, with its circulation reaching 160,000 copies per volume at times. Many Vietnamese millennials recall queuing up and fighting with other kids at local bookstores to rent the newest volumes of Dung si Hesman when they first got out. Collecting spin-off items were also popular with young Hesman fans at the time. A full collection of 160 'Dung si Hesman' volumes is seen in this photo by Erik Le. The nostalgic comic series is getting republished this summer by the Van Hoc (Literature) Publishing House and distributed by Hanoibooks, using scanned images of the original comic, the publisher and distributor said at a launch event on Sunday. The first five volumes of the reprinted Dung si Hesman have already been available at bookstores nationwide since August. The 2019 version will also run for 160 volumes like the original series, with an expected circulation of 2,000 copies per volume. Its artist, Hung Lan, expressed his hope that the 2019 republication would appeal not only to nostalgic millennials but also to Vietnam’s Gen Z readers. Artist Hung Lan (C) and fans pose for a photo at the launch event of the reprinted ‘Dung si Hesman’ comic. Photo: Mi Ly / Tuoi Tre News of the reprint has caused fresh concerns …
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Celebration of International Women’s Day at IDECAF
The French Institute in HCM City will host a series of activities to celebrate International Women’s Day, held at the Institute of Cultural Exchange with France (IDECAF) on March 8. Photo from the organiser’s Facebook event page HCM CITY The French Institute in HCM City will host a series of activities to celebrate International Women’s Day held at the Institute of Cultural Exchange with France (IDECAF) on March 8. The celebration will open with a photo exhibition featuring portraits of Vietnamese women taken by 15 young artists who participated in a photography workshop hosted by the French Institute in Huế and Đà Nẵng in January. The photos can be seen until April 9. A talk show about gender equality will be organised featuring speakers of Julia Levivier, head of the French NGO organisation Planète Enfants & Développement (PE&D) in Việt Nam, psychologist Lý Thị Mai, and Lê Thị Hồng Ánh, head of Human Resources of Sanofi Vietnam. The show will be hosted by Trần Anh Đào, economist, lecturer and researcher at the University of Rouen in France, and the Research Institute on Contemporary Southeast Asia. It will be presented in both Vietnamese and French. The event will end with a screening of French documentary Des Femmes Et Des Hommes (Women And Men) by female director Frédérique Bedos with Vietnamese subtitles. The celebration will begin at 5:45pm at 31 Thái Văn Lung Street in District 1. VNS …
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Red River’s clear colors blamed on dams, pollution
The Red River flowing through Lao Cai Province in February 2021 is clear and not murky. Photo by VnExpress/Pham Ngoc Trien. For a week now, the Red River section that flows through Lao Cai Province has become so clear that there are some shallow areas towards the banks where the river bed can be seen at a depth of one meter. The Red River, over 1,100 km long, originates in China and flows through Lao Cai, Yen Bai, Phu Tho, Vinh Phuc and Hanoi. The river section that flows through Vietnam is about 510 km long. Nguyen Thi Lan, a resident of Lao Cai, said the water of the Red River in her town was normally a thick brown color, and if seen from afar, it looked like a pinkish strip. "It is really strange now that the river has such a clear green shade," she said. Locals people swim in the Red River in 2017. Photo by VnExpress/Ngoc Thanh. Vu Dinh Thuy, deputy director of Lao Cai’s Natural Resources and Environment Department, said this is not the first time the Red River has changed into such a color and this phenomenon has happened around this time of year for the past five years. "Maybe the reason is that the natural alluvium that has always flowed down naturally from further upstream has been absent; and also northern Vietnam has had no rainfall this season (to muddy the waters)." Dao Trong Tu, chairman of the Vietnam Rivers Network, also set out two possible reasons for the changes seen in the Red River. He said a series of hydropower plants and reservoirs operated by China further upstream could have held back alluvium. The other reason, he said, could be the pollution caused by factories operating in upstream areas and along the banks of the river. Tu added that theory of pollution would require specific monitoring and study of the water samples to arrive at a final conclusion. …
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