VietNamNet Bridge – Local authorities in the central coastal city of Phan Thiet have approved a Cau Ngu (Fish Prayer) Festival and a tourist cultural week themed "Mua ve bien goi" (sea calls season back).

The Lim festival, opening on January 13th (lunar year), is the leading Quan Ho song festival as many famous Quan Ho Song villages in the area take part in it.

The Tet Nguyen Dan (Festival of the First Day) announces, the Lunar New Year, and is the most important date in the Vietnamese festival calendar. Commonly known as Tet, it is much more than your average Gregorian New Year’s celebration; it’s time when families reunite in the hope of good fortune for the coming year and ancestral spirits are welcomed back into the family home. And Tet is everybody’s birthday; on this day everyone becomes one year older.

Tet rites begin seven days before New Year’s Day. This is when the Tao Quan – the three Spirits of the Hearth, found in the kitchen of every home – ascend to the heavens to report on the past year’s events to the Jade Emperor. Often these kitchen gods are described as a single person and may be called Ong Tao, Ong Lo or Ong Vua Bep.

Artistic and floral creations will be on display, bringing colour to a 600-metre long street in the centre of Hanoi from Dec 28, three days before the festival officially begins to kick off the New Year’s celebrations.

A number of meetings will be held during the forum, including meetings of ASEAN Tourism Ministsers and ASEAN plus Tourism Ministers, a meeting of ASEAN National Tourism Organisations (NTOs), and meetings of ASEAN NTOs + 3 (China, Japan and the Republic of Korea), and ASEAN NTOs + 1 (India, Russia, Australia and New Zealand).....

The Belgian Association for the Promotion of Education and Training Abroad has cooperated with the Ho Chi Minh City University of Culture to open a training course for staff from 20 museums throughout the country, taught by Professor Anna Lienardy of Belgium’s La Cambre University. The classes offered training on the preservation of paper, and run until October 26, 2008....

This culinary, which is in the framework of the celebration of the diplomatic relations between Canada and Vietnam, is to offer a taste of Canada to Hanoi.The festival has the participation of Canadian chef Derek Furlani who is coming to Vietnam from his speciality restaurant in Hong Kong as the guest chef for this Festival.”.......

According to the Director of the Culture, Sports and Tourism department of the northern mountainous Lao Cai Province Tran Huu Son, the advancement was attributed to a campaign launched by the province from early October to the end of December....