Diaspora vietnamese

Ambassador of Italy to Vietnam Antonio Alessandro (L) seen together with soprano Hien Nguyen at the press conference (Photo courtesy of the singer) Hanoi (VNS/VNA) – Despite facing many difficulties caused by COVID-19 pandemic, Vietnamese soprano Hien Nguyen will have her debut concert in Hanoi next month. Entitle Yeu (Love), the concert will mark her 15-year professional singing career after she became a student of the Vocal Faculty at the National Academy of Music . "Love is not only about affection between man and woman, it’s about a positive attitude for every single moment of the life that you are living. I just want all people to know how to appreciate all the small joy and happiness that they have,” the singer explained about the title of her concert during a press conference at the Casa Italia restaurant in Hanoi recently. The singer, who spent three years working in Italy, said many of her friends and family were worried about her decision to hold a concert amid the pandemic. “While some of them tried to convince me to change my mind, some say that I am brave. The passion for singing burns in me. I want to be on the stage to sing to fulfill my dreams. That’s why I will stick with my decision. Only a governmental decision on social distancing and the cancellation of performances can force us to postpone our event,” the 33-year-old said. The soprano said she has nurtured the idea for the concert after her second video music Thank God It’s Friday which was released at the end of 2019. “To nurture the idea to have my first concert I have worked crazy hard to accumulate money for this ‘milestone’,” she said. In the concert, Hien Nguyen will present a repertoire featuring world-famous classical songs and Vietnamese ballads which will be presented in a very fresh way. All the songs have been re-arranged in a semi-classic and jazz style by musician Tuan Nam and his jazz band. “My goal is to present music in a fresher way which can …

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Through thousands of years of changes in fashion, ao dai, the Vietnamese traditional long dress, has retained its proud position. Carrying the cultural traits through ages, ao dai has become a cultural symbol showing the Vietnamese identity. Ao dai through history are on display at the Ao dai Museum on Long Thuan street, district 9, Ho Chi Minh City. Photos: VNP/VNA Ao dai is the main costume of the performers in ca tru (ceremonial singing), which was recognised by UNESCO as an intangible cultural heritage in need of urgent safeguarding in 2009. Xoan singers of Phu Tho Province wear ao dai. Xoan singing from the northern province of Phu Tho was added to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation’s (UNESCO) list of intangible cultural heritage of humanity in 2017. Vietnamese traditional long dress (Ao dai) festival in Hanoi. Ao dai has become the daily uniform of female students in Hue. Ao dai is a traditional costume in weddings and engagement ceremonies in Hanoi. Italian Ambassador to Vietnam Cecilia Piccioni wears her red ao dai by designer Chula at the festival which took place at the Temple of Literature in Hanoi. Ao dai collections by well-known designers are shown at the Ao dai Festival at the Temple of Literature in Hanoi. Photos: VNP/VNA VNP/VNA …

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It’s time to fess up: after several years of living in Vietnam, my Vietnamese language skills remain a disaster. It’s a veritable train wreck, there’s no getting around it. I have excuses which I replay in my mind in an effort to dull the pain of defeat, most of which are pretty lame. Vietnamese is a tough language for most foreigners to grasp, with endless pronunciation quirks representing the biggest obstacle between us and success. Fair enough, we all know that. Every Tom, Dick, and Harry wants to practice their English with us, so we, as guests, should indulge them, even at the expense of our own progress. That approach conveniently twists a feeble excuse for tires spinning in mud into a benevolent gesture, so that we feel we are making a contribution to the community when the truth is it’s laziness on the part of us foreigners. Those damn accents are the crux of the problem, and the cause for much despair, and there are lots of them – rising, falling, short, long, flat, bim, bam, bop, humpty, dumpty, and probably a few I’m forgetting. As if that’s not enough, sometimes the accents are stacked up on top of letters, while others appear underneath – a circle, a French-style circumflex hat thingy, a teeny-weeny dot, and a rising or falling symbol. The speaker needs to decipher them together with all the corresponding letters, then amalgamate the entire mess, and spit it all out masterfully in one fell swoop. Some words demand complementing facial movements and gesticulations, which are as critical to the word as the letters and accents, such that without those gyrations a listener won’t have the faintest idea what we’re on about. All that is great theory, very logical, so now let’s put ourselves in a day-to-day scenario in the local market. Check out this linguistic work of art: ‘cá lóc’ (snakehead fish), a freshwater beauty commonly used in Vietnamese soups and hotpots. A snakehead fish – ‘cá lóc’ ‘Cá’ is the generic term for fish – …

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