Year of the Cat The weather god still seems to like us. Just in time for the Year of the Cat we had springtime temperatures in Hanoi. Today was the first day in 2011 with over 25 degrees. Finally you can open the window again and sit a little longer...
Tết Nguyên Đán is mainly a family event. As usual on Tet we celebrated the New Year’s Day within the family circle yesterday. The normally vibrant and bustling Hanoi, a city that actually never sleeps, seemed to be dead. Many of the residents spent the holidays with their relatives on...
With the New Year’s festival in Vietnam actually the spring is welcomed. Currently, we still have deepest winter. The coldness doesn’t want to disappear, but that cannot harm the good atmosphere. In these days the markets and shops are full of people who buy food and beverages, clothes and New...
Today a warehouse with fireworks has exploded on the grounds of the My Dinh National Stadium at 11:30 a.m. Actually, they were created for the big firework celebrations of the 1000th anniversay of Hanoi on Sunday. Reportedly, there are four casualties and several injured persons. The cause of the explosion...
Ich muss mich heute kurz fassen, denn die Internetverbindung ist extrem langsam und bricht zwischendurch oefter mal ab. Nach acht Tagen kreuz und quer durch das Mekong Delta sind wir heute auf der Halbinsel Hòn Chông, gut 30 Kilometer suedlich der Stadt Hà Tiên angekommen. Wir haben uns ein kleines...
It seems as if the spring has decided to return to Hanoi. After it was already nearly 30 degrees in mid-February, March proved to be quite a disappointment, as it was quite cool and rainy with just over or just below 20 degrees. But now it is finally getting warmer...
There is daylight robbery and fraud probably anywhere in the world, especially at places where many tourists are. Vietnamese newspapers now report about a particularly hard case of rip-off, which sheds a fairly bad light on the Vietnamese capital. Every morning at around half past nine, a group of women...
The tradition of Ca Trù, also named Hát Ả Đào or Hát Nói Ca Tru, dates back to the 11th Century. At that time, songs enjoyed great popularity at the royal court as well as among aristocrats and scholars. Attractive young female singers entertained men in a relaxed environment with...
Unlike the Hat Cheo, which is deeply rooted in the culture of Vietnam, the Hat Tuong theatre came from China in the 13th Century, after the Tran Dynasty (1225-1400) had repelled the Mongolians. Among the POWs, there was Lý Nguyên Cát, a master of the Chinese theater, who later received...
In celebration of today’s International Women’s Day, here is a song of the very talented, aspiring singer Cát Lê Trong Ly. She is 22 years old and, until recently, has worked in a coffee shop in Ho Chi Minh City. The song’s title, Là con Gái Thật tuyệt, means: It...