Hanoi’s grand anniversary to honor ao dai

Models perform ao dai at a fashion show in HCMC - Photo: Kieu Giang

A huge ao dai (Vietnamese long dress) festival will take place in the program “The fanciful night on Sword Lake” on the evening of October 1, kicking off the festival for the grand millennial anniversary of Thang Long-Hanoi, reports Vietnam News Agency.

Collections of ao dai from Vietnam’s three regions - the North, South and central -will be paraded by models from Ngoc Son Temple to The Huc Bridge and But Temple on Sword Lake. The dress collections will be displayed along a specially-built 350m catwalk decorated with woven mats, conical hats, and lively dioramas depicting Hanoi in ancient times.

The 45-minute ao dai performance, which will be broadcast live nationally on TV, will be followed by a 15-minute light festival and fireworks display.

Vietnamese designer Duc Hung will bring his four seasons collection to the festival.

“Hanoi has four seasons with distinctive characters which inspired me to create this collection,” said Hung.

Hung said he carefully selected made-in-Vietnam materials and colors for his collections, using brocade for spring, silk for summer, voile for autumn, and velvet for winter.

Hung’s ao dai collections will also present colors representing Vietnamese festivals of three regions such as pink for peach blossoms for Tet in the North, Hue purple for the Central and bright yellow representing the apricot blossoms of the South. Hung has designed 500 sets of ao dai as gifts for the festival to promote the Vietnamese long dress for international friends - Japan, France and Russia.

Hung’s ao dai collection will again be paraded to the sound of bronze drums in the program “Thang Long – the flying dragon city” on the evening of October 10 at the My Dinh National Stadium.

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Thousands attend Buddha statue unveiling at pagoda

Thousands of monks and pilgrims from around the country attended a ceremony on the weekend to sanctify a giant Buddha statue at Phat Tich Pagoda in the northern province of Bac Ninh, reports VietnamPlus.

Ten thousand lit candles lined the path from the pagoda’s gate to the top of Phat Tich Mountain where the giant Buddha statue sits. After the ceremony there was a10-minute fireworks display.

The VND75 billion stone statue, which is 27 meters high and weighs 3,000 tons, is a replica of the Buddha Amitabha statue from the Ly Dynasty. It was invested by the government with support from other organizations and individuals around the country.

The statue is one of biggest stone Buddhas in Southeast Asia and is Vietnam’s first giant stone statue.

Phat Tich Pagoda, built between the seventh and 10th century in Phat Tich Commune, Tien Du District, Bac Ninh Province, is recognized as a national relic that houses numerous objects of cultural value from the Ly Dynasty including a statue of Buddha Amitabha on a 1.87m high lotus pedestal carved out of blue stone, a tower garden, and a stone board engraved with images of musicians and dancing girls.

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Thousands attend Buddha statue unveiling at pagoda

Thousands of monks and pilgrims from around the country attended a ceremony on the weekend to sanctify a giant Buddha statue at Phat Tich Pagoda in the northern province of Bac Ninh, reports VietnamPlus.

Ten thousand lit candles lined the path from the pagoda’s gate to the top of Phat Tich Mountain where the giant Buddha statue sits. After the ceremony there was a10-minute fireworks display.

The VND75 billion stone statue, which is 27 meters high and weighs 3,000 tons, is a replica of the Buddha Amitabha statue from the Ly Dynasty. It was invested by the government with support from other organizations and individuals around the country.

The statue is one of biggest stone Buddhas in Southeast Asia and is Vietnam’s first giant stone statue.

Phat Tich Pagoda, built between the seventh and 10th century in Phat Tich Commune, Tien Du District, Bac Ninh Province, is recognized as a national relic that houses numerous objects of cultural value from the Ly Dynasty including a statue of Buddha Amitabha on a 1.87m high lotus pedestal carved out of blue stone, a tower garden, and a stone board engraved with images of musicians and dancing girls.

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• Thousands attend Buddha statue unveiling at pagoda
• CIE seeks MBA applicants for int’l studies
• Flying dragons raise $61,000 for charity
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Thousands attend Buddha statue unveiling at pagoda

Thousands of monks and pilgrims from around the country attended a ceremony on the weekend to sanctify a giant Buddha statue at Phat Tich Pagoda in the northern province of Bac Ninh, reports VietnamPlus.

Ten thousand lit candles lined the path from the pagoda’s gate to the top of Phat Tich Mountain where the giant Buddha statue sits. After the ceremony there was a10-minute fireworks display.

The VND75 billion stone statue, which is 27 meters high and weighs 3,000 tons, is a replica of the Buddha Amitabha statue from the Ly Dynasty. It was invested by the government with support from other organizations and individuals around the country.

The statue is one of biggest stone Buddhas in Southeast Asia and is Vietnam’s first giant stone statue.

Phat Tich Pagoda, built between the seventh and 10th century in Phat Tich Commune, Tien Du District, Bac Ninh Province, is recognized as a national relic that houses numerous objects of cultural value from the Ly Dynasty including a statue of Buddha Amitabha on a 1.87m high lotus pedestal carved out of blue stone, a tower garden, and a stone board engraved with images of musicians and dancing girls.

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Ninh Thuan bun cha ca

A bowl of bun cha ca in Ninh Thuan Province - Photo: Mai Ly

Bun cha ca (rice noodle soup with fish paste) is a popular breakfast dish in the coastal areas of the south. In Ninh Thuan Province, bun cha ca is served at most street-side shops and restaurants for the cheap price of VND6,000.

The main ingredients of the dish are white rice noodles, fish pieces and fish cakes but there’s an art to making a tasty bowl of bun cha ca.

The fish cake must be made of good fish such as thu phan, moi or song. To make the cake, remove the bones and grind the meat with spices and a bit of saffron flour to make it an attractive yellow color.

Then knead the ground fish meat into a sticky paste and roll it into a ball which is flattened with the hands before being placed in a hot oiled fry pan.

The pieces of fish are then fired and cut into pieces. The soup must be boiled from sweet pork bones, fish bones and some fried shrimp. Then the fish is added and the cake is cut up into slices before being added in.

The dish is always served with many kinds of vegetable such as bean sprouts, sliced rau muong (water spinach), salads, banana flowers and many kinds of aromatic vegetables. A bit of fish sauce, and some drops of lemon and chili sauce will complete the taste.

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Ninh Thuan bun cha ca

A bowl of bun cha ca in Ninh Thuan Province - Photo: Mai Ly

Bun cha ca (rice noodle soup with fish paste) is a popular breakfast dish in the coastal areas of the south. In Ninh Thuan Province, bun cha ca is served at most street-side shops and restaurants for the cheap price of VND6,000.

The main ingredients of the dish are white rice noodles, fish pieces and fish cakes but there’s an art to making a tasty bowl of bun cha ca.

The fish cake must be made of good fish such as thu phan, moi or song. To make the cake, remove the bones and grind the meat with spices and a bit of saffron flour to make it an attractive yellow color.

Then knead the ground fish meat into a sticky paste and roll it into a ball which is flattened with the hands before being placed in a hot oiled fry pan.

The pieces of fish are then fired and cut into pieces. The soup must be boiled from sweet pork bones, fish bones and some fried shrimp. Then the fish is added and the cake is cut up into slices before being added in.

The dish is always served with many kinds of vegetable such as bean sprouts, sliced rau muong (water spinach), salads, banana flowers and many kinds of aromatic vegetables. A bit of fish sauce, and some drops of lemon and chili sauce will complete the taste.

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The birdnest caves of Yen Island

Yen Island in Quy Nhon City where the swifts build the nests that make birds nest soup Photo: Vietnam+

From the central coast city of Quy Nhon, the towering cliffs of Yen Island look like a giant dinosaur defending the city from storms and heavy seas.

The picturesque island, which is also called Phuong Mai Peninsula, is famous for its cliffs and caves where birds build the nests used in the much-prized health-giving birds’ nest soup.

To visit the island in Nhon Ly Commune, Quy Nhon City take a two hour boat from the wharf on Tan Islet in Hai Cang Ward. The long journey will be rewarded when you see the caves, ten thousands of years old and stone cliffs rising vertically from the waves. The floors of the caves are large but strewn with rocks making it the perfect place for swallows to make their nests.

Once inside the caves you will be overawed by their size of the interior. The bird nests are everywhere, strung about in chains. The mothers feed their hungry young and fan them with their wings, while the little ones chirp loudly. The sounds of the birds, the dripping of water and the waves below are amazing.

Nguyen Hong Van, director of the management and exploitation board of birds’ nests in Binh Dinh Province, said that there are 30 caves on Yen Island, mainly located in two villages of Nhon Hai and Nhon Ly. In small caves such as Rung Cao, Doi, Ba Nghe, Can and Ham Xe, every year, people collect from 100 to 300 bird nests. For the large caves such as Ca, Doi Trong, Doi Ngoai, Luong and Kho, especially, the caves whose mouths open toward the East or Southeast, that are cool and airy and have fresh water dripping from the ceiling, locals can collect 14,000 to 15,000 bird nests per year.

In spring when the weather becomes warmer, visitors can see flocks of birds filling the sky. To take the nests from the walls of the cliff and from the cave ceilings, people build bamboo scaffolds often using them like bridges. Some caves are very high so that people use up to 300 lengths of bamboo to make each scaffold that may be five lengths of bamboo tall to reach the ceiling. The way to take the nest is very meticulous. For a nest that is out of reach, people use a stick with a nail on the top for a hook. In the dry weather, before taking the nests, the locals inject water into it to soften it and avoid it breaking.

The harvest season starts from April in the lunar calendar as the breeding season is lunar January and February. In lunar April they take the first harvest. The second harvest starts when the nestlings become strong enough to fly. People can collect a few nests in the third harvest stage which has the best quality nests.

The island also has many historical and cultural relics dating from the Cham era to Nguyen Dynasty such as Phat Loi Pagoda with its mysterious Cham statue, Tam Hoa Mountain, the site of Tay Son troop’s glorious victory in the eighteen century and Ho Ky Fortress.

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