Craft village

Tokyo Olympic organisers plan to give away about 150,000 condoms at next month’s Games, but are telling athletes to take them home rather than use them in the Olympic village where social distancing rules and coronavirus measures are the top priority.

Large numbers of condoms have been given out at the Games since the 1988 Seoul Olympics to raise awareness of HIV and AIDS, and organisers said the International Olympic Committee had requested their continued distribution.

But athletes have been told to keep their distance from each other, meaning fewer opportunities to mingle and more.

“The distribution of condoms is not for use at the athlete’s village, but to have athletes take them back to their home countries to raise awareness” of HIV and AIDS issues, said Tokyo 2020 in an emailed response to questions by Reuters .

Officials have already barred overseas spectators and are asking those who do attend the delayed event to show their support by clapping rather than cheering or singing to try and reduce the risk of spreading the virus.

Dining has become another issue to resolve. Organisers were originally planning to feed residents of the village in vast dining halls – the largest one with a capacity to seat 4,500 people at once.

But now, the organisers will ask athletes to dine alone, maintain social distancing with others, and wipe down surfaces after eating.

“Without the proper measures in place, it will only take one person to bring in the virus and spread it, especially in places like the athlete village,” Nobuhiko Okabe, one of the infectious disease specialists advising Tokyo 2020 on its coronavirus measures said at a news conference on Friday.

“We have to do what we can to make sure an outbreak doesn’t happen, and we really need the cooperation of all the athletes and delegations to make this work,” he added.

Nhan said that in early January 2021, the northern mountain region, including Lao Cai Province, home to popular resort town Sa Pa, was hit by a cold snap resulting from a strong cold front. Responding to the news, he traveled to Lao Cai where he shot this photo of a lonely house inundated with white snow on Nhiu Co San Mountain of Y Ty Commune.

A small house stands alone on a tea hill in Moc Chau Town of northern Son La Province. At an altitude of 1,050 meters above sea level, Moc Chau with a temperate climate is suitable for growing tea.

This detached house is located amid the ripe golden rice terraces of Mu Cang Chai, Yen Bai Province, around seven hours’ drive to the northwest of Hanoi. The town sits at 1,000 meters above sea level at the foot of Hoang Lien Son Mountain Range, with its rice terraces stretching across 2,200 hectares of mountainside.

Nhan was fascinated by the image of a farmer sitting on a craft with his bundle of rice, floating on the jade waters of Quay Son River in Cao Bang Province on the border with China.

A ‘lonely’ house floats on a flooded mound, part of a resort near Dong Mo Lake on the outskirts of Son Tay in Hanoi. The lake at the foot of Ba Vi Mountain is about 40 kilometers from the capital, famous for its charming scenery.

A lone fisherman rows a coracle at dawn in the waters of Thang Binh District, central Quang Nam Province. This seaside fish market grows bustling at dawn when fishing boats flock ashore after a long night at sea. Traders typically resell fish and shrimp at various local markets.

A woman forages near a bridge across the Lai Giang River in Hoai Nhon District of central Binh Dinh Province.

‘A lonely boat’ waits at a wharf, taken at Phu Ngan River in Tuy An District of central Phu Yen Province.

Nhan sits next to a “lonely tree” in the middle of the night, looking at the starry sky near Da Dia Reef, a popular tourist attraction in central Phu Yen Province, his hometown.

A woman in the middle of a green field against a darkening sky, taken in the remote district of Krong Bong in the Central Highlands province of Dak Lak.

A lonely boatman on Tuyen Lam Lake in an early morning, surrounded by a forest of hollong trees during the leave changing season.

A street vendor crosses the hill leaving footprints in the sand in Mui Ne, a popular coastal town in south central Binh Thuan Province.

Photos by Cao Ky Nhan

A performance by singer Dang Thi Lua at the second Hanoi Young Ca Tru Talent. (Photo: VNA)

This art genre has been increasingly developed both in terms of quantity of clubs and their quality in Hanoi, one of the largest cradles of Ca Tru in the country. The activities of Ca Tru singing clubs and guilds have contributed to preserving and promoting its artistic value, thereby creating a lasting vitality for the artform.

Preserving and passing on heritage

Meritorious Artisan Bui The Tien, deputy head of the Ngai Cau Ca Tru Club in Hoai Duc district expressed his belief and optimism about the club’s development as well as the preservation of the heritage in the locality despite the postponement of many performances and training programmes due to the COVDI-19 epidemic. With great efforts in recent years, a young force was trained to help Ngai Cau Village’s Ca Tru go a “long way”. Artisan Tien said: “While avoiding crowds to prevent the epidemic, we asked the club’s members to train, review and search for Ca Tru songs that are at risk of being lost”.

With singer Nguyen Kim Ngoc from the Phu Thi Ca Tru Club in Gia Lam District, Ca Tru seems to be imprinted in his heart and mind following many years of attachment. Therefore, the interruption of the performance schedule due to COVID-19 has not greatly affected the heritage’s practitioners. She said: “I still focus on improving my skills and research ancient melodies to enrich my knowledge”.

Like Ngai Cau and Phu Thi, many other Ca Tru clubs in the capital city have not faced difficulties in the preservation and promotion of the heritage in the context of the COVID-19 epidemic. This partly confirms the positive results following many years of making efforts to bring Ca Tru from the brink of being lost back to its current strong existence in contemporary life. At a time when Ca Tru was listed among Intangible Cultural Heritages in Need of Urgent Safeguarding by UNESCO, Hanoi only had a few clubs. However, there are now nearly 20 groups and clubs regularly performing and over 50 people with the ability to pass it on to younger generations. The clubs have preserved over 30 ancient styles, songs and dances while developing an additional 20 new melodies.

It is worth mentioning that Hanoi is also the leading locality in the number of people’s and meritorious artisans as well as holding the most regular performances of Ca Tru, attracting large crowds. Deputy Head of the Management Board of Hoan Kiem Lake and Hanoi Old Quarter Tran Thi Thuy Lan said that spaces promoting Ca Tru have not only created an attractive highlight for tourism in Hanoi’s Old Quarter but also offer opportunities for artisans and managers to exchange experiences in preserving and passing on the heritage’s value to younger generations.

Further support

The fact that UNESCO put Vietnam’s Ca Tru into its list of Intangible Cultural Heritages in Need of Urgent Safeguarding affirms this heritage’s value to humanity. In order to preserve and promote the Ca Tru art and enhance its lasting vitality, music researcher Dang Hoanh Loan said that along with efforts from the communities, the further support of specialised agencies and local authorities in providing operating funds and preferential policies for artisans, organising teaching activities and developing performing spaces is very essential. In terms of teaching and passing on to younger generations, it is crucial to focus on training singers and instrument players in accordance with high standards to ensure quality.

Professor To Ngoc Thanh, Chairman of the Vietnam Folk Arts Association, notes that it is necessary to create favourable conditions for the performances and practice of Ca Tru, fostering a sustainable vitality. In addition, Ca Tru should be taught as extra-curricular lessons at school, he added.

Head of the Department for Heritage Management under the Hanoi municipal Department of Culture and Sports Pham Thi Lan Anh said that in recent years, the city’s authorities have made great efforts to revive and develop this genre. In addition to seminars on preserving and promoting the heritage’s value, Hanoi’s cultural sector has enhanced its research and documentation of Ca Tru songs and melodies that elderly artisans harboured; supported the expansion of spaces at several relic sites and landscapes in association with tours; and organised many festivals and contests to create “playgrounds” for Ca Tru practitioners as well as to seek young talent.

According to the head of Dong Anh District’s Cultural and Information Department Nguyen The Manh, the district will continue to see financial investment in opening classes to teach Ca Tru amongst young people, purchasing musical instruments and performance costumes, and helping Ca Tru clubs develop.

Ca Tru bears a unique feature that is not found in any other art form. Thanks to the efforts made by agencies at all levels and people, Hanoi’s Ca Tru has not only been preserved but has been gradually entering contemporary social life with a new and lasting vitality.

Nhan Dan

Alongside teaching chamber music and lecturing master classes, the 31-year-old artist has initiated “Schubert in a Mug” – a music project featuring concerts with the aim to bring classical performers and audiences closer together. The artist speaks to Thuy Hang about his decision to return home.

Phan Do Phuc

You decided to come back to Vietnam after spending more than 10 years studying and working in New York. Was that a difficult decision?

Well, it was not an easy and obvious decision for both my wife Hsin-Chiao and I. Both of us have already established our lives in New York and we were quite comfortable, so to leave all of that behind was not such a simple consideration, as you can imagine. But eventually, after considering many factors, involving ourselves, our families and other things, we decided it was worth a try to come back to Vietnam. After almost more than a year here (since February 2020), I can say I’m happy to have made that decision. Besides the fact that it’s good to be home and be close to family, I could feel tremendous untapped potential for classical music in Hanoi and have been thrilled to help to contribute to its growth.

Did you face any difficulties in returning to your home country? What is the biggest difference between the music scene in the US and Vietnam?

I think the biggest challenge for me personally has been finding ways to maintain my studying and practising to improve myself as a musician. New York was basically the cultural centre, and I absolutely loved being surrounded and pressured by countless world-class musicians, many of them at my age or younger. One constantly has to push oneself to be better, to stay relevant in the scene, so I would say there was a lot of outside pressure which I thrived on. In comparison, Hanoi has a rather young classical music tradition, relatively speaking, so naturally you don’t have such a huge crowd of die-hard professionals and enthusiasts who constantly threaten to take your place. The challenge then becomes creating the inner momentum and pressure to keep pushing myself to the standard that I have grown accustomed to during the time I lived abroad.

Another aspect is the matter of musical taste. While in New York, I felt a distinct sense that the public taste for classical music (or other musical genres and other art forms, for that matter) has been seasoned and refined over years and years, as the result of exposure to the absolutely best people in the field. On the other hand, here in Hanoi, I think we are still in the process of searching and refining our taste, of finding what really resonates. And I personally find it quite exciting to observe how the taste is being shaped, and (hopefully) to positively contribute to that.

Phan Do Phuc (right) seen together with other musicians during their SiaM Vol. 7: Wolfie! on April 22 concert. Photo courtesy of SiaM

Have you been lecturing since you came back?

Besides enjoying my time on stage, I find myself rather passionate about teaching, so I have been doing quite a lot, from private cello lessons, to chamber music coaching, to running cello sectionals and master classes. I have found teaching to help myself deepen my understanding of music and the craft of playing my instruments, since I feel I don’t truly understand something until I can verbalise it and explain it to someone else effectively. Also, it feels good to be able to pass on values that have been bestowed upon me from my mentors and teachers abroad. As Janos Starker – a legendary cellist and pedagogue – emphasised the importance of teaching as the act of “passing on the torch”, I’m hoping to do the same.

Many classical musicians in Vietnam can’t earn a living through music. Do you find this to be true?

That is a rather sad fact which I’m very well aware of, and it’s not something that only happens in Vietnam but many other places, New York included. Being a musician is not the most profitable profession and in many cases, we have to do other things to feed our passion.

I consider myself tremendously lucky that I have not had to do that here in Hanoi. Thanks to the relatively low living expense here in Vietnam, I feel a simple life is not too difficult to maintain; three meals a day and an occasional nice coffee outside here and there; I’m a happy man! But that’s probably because my wife and I have not had kids yet. I have a feeling once a kid enters the picture, things will be very different.

As classical music isn’t that popular among most Vietnamese people, what do you do to improve this?

Classical music, similar to other forms of fine arts, takes time, patience and a bit of effort from the listeners to get accustomed to, and eventually to enjoy and appreciate. Unfortunately the modern lifestyle often does not allow an average person that bit of time and patience to sit down and enjoy the beauty that classical music offers; so the majority of people often choose other musical genres such as pop, for more immediate emotional reactions and thus, enjoyment. But I personally think what a person could get out of a session of deep and focused listening to classical music is really something else that touches him/her at a much deeper level and a lot more satisfying. The job for me and other classical performers would be to help guide listeners through a few sessions like that, and I believe many will be hooked. That’s part of the reasons why my team and I have started the project “Schubert in a Mug”. We hope to be helpful tour guides for audiences who are willing to join us for the journey.

Listeners enjoy the SiaM Vol. 6: London Fog concert on March 30. Photo courtesy of SiaM

Can you tell us more about the project?

The idea of SiaM is to build a kind of bridge, to basically erase the distance between classical performers and audiences. As you know in a traditional concert hall setting, the two are in two different worlds, completely separated. Of course there’s beauty in the classic concert hall setting, and all of SiaM artists still regularly perform in such a context. But we hope to provide something different at SiaM, another perspective into classical music. Classical music could be very fancy, very majestic, but it could also be incredibly intimate. SiaM hopes to explore the beauty of warmth and intimacy in classical music at our concerts.

Since August 2020, we have hosted two concerts each month – every month with a different theme, from The First Viennese School, which feature the music of the Classical Era (around 1750-1832) to the most recent theme London Fog, which introduces rather modern, 20th century musical language from Britain. Almost every one of our concerts has been sold out and we got so much feedback from our dear audiences, both expressing their appreciation, as well as their constructive thoughts as to how SiaM can be even better. We are tremendously thankful.

In March, the project won the “Finest Project of the Year” by Hanoi Grapevine. SiaM is only eight months old, so it’s really encouraging for us to know that the project is being warmly received by our dear audiences, art lovers and critics.

Financial issues always challenge any project. Does SiaM face the same problem?

Solving the financial problem is always tricky for start-up projects. From the beginning, we have decided that we needed to aim for a sustainable model, in which the amount earned from ticket sales has to be able to at least cover all expenses. And luckily we have been able to do just that.

Has the current coronavirus pandemic affected the performing schedule of SiaM?

SiaM was born in August 2020, during the time that the COVID situation was also quite complicated, so we had to postpone our very first concert. But since then, we have been lucky that things have normalised enough for us to give monthly concerts. At the moment though, it seems we will have to postpone our SiaM Vol 8 concert again and we are looking into giving online concerts and other projects to utilise the social media platforms. It’s challenging for sure, but we are confident we will find ways to continue to thrive.

Alongside SiaM, are you involved in any other music projects?

I personally prefer to introduce projects after they have been more or less fully realised, so for now, I’d just say “wait and see”.

VNS

A moment of world-class quality from David Alaba earned Austria the breakthrough they had toiled so hard to find against North Macedonia on Sunday, sending Franco Foda’s side on their way to a first-ever European Championship win.

Alaba’s cross from the left wing curled invitingly behind the Macedonian defence and left substitute Michael Gregoritsch with a simple finish.

It came 78 minutes into a scrappy, hard-fought and often fiery encounter with the lowest-ranked team at Euro 2020, who were making their major tournament debut.

Austria eventually got a third in the 90th minute through Marko Arnautovic, but Foda’s side had to dig deep for the three points and questions will undoubtedly now be raised again about Alaba’s best role.

The 28-year-old, who recently joined Real Madrid on a free transfer after 13 trophy-laden years with Bayern Munich, is renowned for his versatility.

Even so, it came as something of a surprise to see Austria’s star player line up in the centre of a back three for their opening game.

It was up to Marcel Sabitzer to provide the craft necessary to break down the resilient debutants early on.

The playmaker showed some frustration inside the opening 15 minutes, throwing his arms in the air at the lack of options in front of him, but it was the RB Leipzig man’s wonderful delivery that led to Stefan Lainer’s volleyed opener.

But a calamitous defensive mix-up handed North Macedonia their historic first major tournament goal through 37-year-old Goran Pandev, putting the impetus back on Austria to unlock the defence once more.

As Sabitzer’s influence waned and the game reached the final 15 minutes, Alaba took matters into his own hands and began to venture forward more.

He did not need long to make an impact – his moment of magic was produced with 12 minutes remaining and ultimately won the game for Foda’s side.

It was a clear sign of Alaba’s ability to threaten in the final third, an area of the pitch he was the furthest from of all Austria’s outfield players for most of the game.

The brilliant assist may well lead to calls for him to be deployed in midfield for their remaining Group C games against Ukraine and the Netherlands.

Questions over Alaba’s role aside, there were many positives for Austria.

Foda’s side had one win in six games and had not scored for over 300 minutes leading up to the tournament.

Therefore, registering their first Euros victory and scoring three times in the process will relieve some pressure as they aim for a place in the last-16.