The central coastal province of Khanh Hoa has decided to restore the Cau Ngu (Fish Worshipping) festival – a typical and common ritual of fishermen living in the coastal area – and to include it in the Nha Trang Sea Festival 2007 which is due to begin on June 9.

Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has proposed that State President Nguyen Minh Triet consider and ratify the Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions.

More than 20 artisans from Ninh Hoa district, together with students at the Tourism Department of the College of Culture and Arts in central coastal Nha Trang City, on June 6, started to make the country’s longest spring roll (Nem).

Ho Bao Duy, a 9th grader from Ho Chi Minh City, surpassed nearly 2 million peers nationwide to win the first prize of the 36th UPU Letter Writing Contest – Vietnam 2007.

Multicultural Education and Counselling through the Arts (MECA), a US community-based non-profit organisation, will perform jazz, classical and folk music at the Youth Theatre in Hanoi on June 8.

An exhibition by two German architects Markus Heinsdorff and Christoph Tonges highlighting two traditional Vietnamese materials - wood and bamboo - will open at Goethe Institute on June 7.

Ten contestants will demonstrate their hair-styling skills at the National Hair Contest at the Hanoi Opera House this weekend to vie for a place in an Asia-wide contest being held by Davines Vietnam in HCM City next month.

As many as 60 photographic prints by renowned US photographer and ethnographer Edward S. Curtis are on display at the “Sacred Legacy” exhibition, which is being held in Hanoi from June 4-16.

The 2007 Sea Festival, the third of its kind, will open in Nha Trang city, central coastal Khanh Hoa province, from June 9-15. Preparations are well underway to offer visitors the best chance to enjoy the festival.

Thousands of young women aged 18-27 are expected to contest the title Miss Vietnam Jewellery 2007 when the event kicks off in September.

The New World Media Joint-stock company will hold a wedding reception, entitled “Path to happiness” during the Da Lat Flower Festival 2007.

Thirty-two teams have been selected out of 353 entrants during the regional qualifiers of the Robocon Vietnam 2007 contest to compete in the national finals in Hanoi on June 4-6.

Nearly 300 cyclo drivers from Hanoi, Hue and HCM City participated in a quiz on traffic laws in the city of Hue on June 2.

The Vietnamese Embassy in China held a ceremony on June 1 to receive more than 30 precious photographs of Vietnamese President Ho Chi Minh from Chinese professor Wenzhang at the Beijing Foreign Language College.

The Vietnamese Embassy in the Netherlands attended the 49th “Pasar Malam Besar” festival, which was held in the Hague, the Netherlands from May 17 to 28.

A concert featuring 10 pieces of Spain’s musical treasures will be held in the evening of May 31 at the Hanoi Opera House to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Spanish-Vietnamese diplomatic relations.

A short training course opened in Hanoi on May 30 to teach Vietnamese to Overseas Vietnamese students from the City College of San Francisco and San Francisco State University.

The central province of Quang Nam will host the third Quang Nam - Heritage Itinerary 2007 festival from June 26-30, 2007 with the theme “Quang Nam - Indochina Cultural Heritage Meeting”.

A “Childhood world” exhibition and fair is being held with a wide range of activities at the Vietnam Culture and Arts Exhibition Centre in Hanoi from May 28 to June 2.

A delegation of the Hanoi municipal People’s Committee left for France on May 28 to participate in the “Hanoi Cultural Week in Toulouse”.

A press conference was held in Hanoi on May 28 to announce a special art programme to mark International Children’s Day (June 1) during the Action Month for Children in 2007.

The central provinces of Thua Thien-Hue, Quang Nam and Da Nang city are cooperating to promote tourism in Bangkok, Thailand early next month.

The Music Conservatoire will co-ordinate with the Cultural Heritage Department to organize a scientific seminar in Hanoi on May 29-31 to analyse the traditional music heritage of Vietnam.

The 2007 Da Lat Flower Festival will be held in Da Lat City, Central Highland Lam Dong province, from December 15-21.

A music performance by Paola Turci, a renowned Italian singer, on May 26 raised the curtain on the second Vietnamese Culture Festival in the Italian capital.

The Vietnam Museum of Ethnology held a special programme on folk games on May 26 to mark the International Children’s Day (June 1).

The Hanoi Esperanto Association will focus its activities on promoting Hanoi’s cultural values to foreigners by means of the artificial language Esperanto in the 2007-2012 period.

A cyclo race will be held for the first time on June 11 as part of the 2007 Sea Festival in central Nha Trang city with the aim of introducing Vietnam’s unique cyclos to foreign tourists.

Regionally based artists and musicians from Laos, Cambodia and Malaysia will join local troupes in performing at the famed Central Highland Gong Cultural Festival 2007.

A Lao television channel will make its debut on May 28 by screening a series of documentary films on Vietnam and the Laos-Vietnam relationship.