The event organised for the benefit of Agent Orange victims by Vinaphunu – a popular club for Vietnamese women in Berlin – features 60 works of calligraphy on paper and bamboo.

The organisers report most of the works have been sold, for prices ranging from USD7 to USD140 each.

“For Vietnamese, the Lunar New Year includes peach blossoms, banh chung (glutinous rice cake filled with green bean and pork) and thu phap (calligraphy)” says Nguyen Thi Hoai Thu, head of the Vinaphunu.

A specialist in thu phap, Mrs. Thu believes the art was popular hundreds of years ago and is still evident in Vietnamese spirit and mind.

Mrs. Thu and her daughter collected the thu phap works by artisans in Hanoi and HCMC during their visit to Vietnam last year.

Visitors will be able to learn more about Vietnam and its people through such exhibitions, she says.

Mrs. Thu and her staff also worked hard to launch a music and dance programme featuring both overseas Vietnamese and German performers on the event’s opening day last week.

Established in 1991 in Berlin, Vinaphunu engages in many charity and community activities, including providing free consulting services and training programmes in Vietnamese and German for Vietnamese women and their families in Berlin.

The exhibition runs through February 28 at the Vinaphunu office located in Prenzlauer Berg District’s Scholieb Street.

The month-long contest will draw 130 beauty crown winners from 130 nations across the world and see 20 related events take place across the country. They include the Miss World Ao Dai (Vietnamese traditional gowns) fashion show in Ho Chi Minh City, a fruit festival in the Mekong Delta province of Tien Giang and a Miss World Ambassadors night in Hanoi.

The RAAS 1000 Star island that covers over 300 ha of land off the Nha Trang beach resort in the central coastal province of Khanh Hoa will crown the busy month with the final round.

The RAAS group is building a Miss World Village on a 30 ha-large site in the shape of the S-letter to keep memorabilia of Miss World beauty queens.

Miss World 2010 organisers have decided to spend over 10 million USD on a host of charitable activities in all parts of Vietnam.

The event is expected to help boost Vietnam’s hospitality industry and further attract foreign investment.

As many as 80% to 90% of hotels’ rooms in the city were used to serve the visitors, including 700,000 foreign arrivals, surging 5.15% over the same period last year.

In six months the capital city also licensed and appraised hotel investment projects and started the construction of SAS Hanoi Royal Hotel.

The municipal People’s Committee plans to build high-end tourist areas and adopt mechanisms and policies for businesses and investors to execute tourism projects.

The Cham ethnic minority group built My Son between the 4th and 13th centuries in a valley in Duy Phu Commune, Duy Xuyen District in the Central Province of Quang Nam.

My Son was recognized as a World Cultural Heritage Site by UNESCO in December, 1999. However, because of natural and environmental effects, and numerous wars, the relics have been heavily damaged, especially the G temple complex.

The second phrase of the project will complete the restoration of the G1 temple – the most important temple in the G temple complex, and provide knowledge about the cultural heritage of the site, following international standards for archaeologists, architectures, experts in preservation and heritage site managers.

The project will also build a database for long-term preservation of the site. Total capital for second phrase will be around USD 435,000, and will come from the Lerici Foundation, along with over VND 300 million of corresponding capital from the province.

The first phrase of the project was carried out by Vietnam in coordination with UNESCO to research geography and archeological activities and makes a geographical information map for temples in My Son relic.