Young male country artists

A preschool teacher and her students during playtime in HCM City’s Bình Thạnh District. – VNS Photo Diệp Phan

HCM CITY – The HCM City People’s Council has revised plans to improve the salaries of new preschool teachers in an effort to address the shortage of teachers at local preschools.

New graduates working in public preschools will continue to receive financial support to 2025.

Under the plan, new preschool teachers will continue to receive monthly support of VNĐ3 million (US$130) in the first working year, or 100 per cent of their base salary.

In the second year, support will be 70 per cent of the base salary and in the third year 50 per cent.

Preschools in the city recruit about 600 teachers a year, so the city needs about VNĐ20 billion ($870.26) to carry out the plan.

The original plan, which began in 2014, helped triple the number of preschool teachers in the city to 1,205 in 2019, according to the city’s Department of Education and Training.

However, the city now needs 871 preschool teachers working under formal contracts and 3,561 babysitters.

To attract more preschool teachers, the council has revised the plan to improve their income. Preschool teachers who have signed labour contracts of under 12 months will receive nine months of monthly support equal to the minimum monthly wage for workers in Region I, or VNĐ4.42 million ($191.39).  Contracted babysitters will receive half of that.

The number of preschool students in recent years in the city has increased by about 10,000 per year, putting great pressure on schools and teachers.

Many teachers quit because of the hard work and low salaries. Teaching preschoolers requires special skills, including dancing, singing and storytelling.

Teachers must also ensure both educational quality and student safety. Work hours typically range from nine to 10 hours a day with no overtime pay.

“The intense workload and burden of keeping students safe can cause chronic stress, which undermines the health of pre-school teachers,” Hồ Thị Kim Ngân, deputy head of the Labour Relations Department under the Việt Nam General Confederation of Labour, has said.

The confederation has asked the Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs to classify preschool teaching as “arduous, dangerous labour” to allow teachers to retire early.

If approved, male teachers would retire at 57 and females at 55, five years earlier than usual. The lower retirement age would also keep the workforce young, Ngân said.

Phạm Thị Ngọc Lan, 52, a teacher at Cần Thạnh Preschool in Cần Giờ District, agreed with the early retirement proposal.

“Everyone thinks this job is all fun and games, but it’s really tough,” she said.

Lan said that dealing with demanding parents can be intense and often threatening, especially when children suffer minor injuries from falls or fights with others. As a result, many young teachers are unsure about working until retirement age.

Việt Nam regularly faces preschool teacher shortages, with 45,000 currently needed, Minister of Education and Training Phùng Xuân Nhạ has said. – VNS

The Wall rock band will perform Way Back Home live show at the National University of Civil Engineering on April 17. Photo tienphong.vn

HÀ NỘI — Late musician Trần Lập, the former leader of Bức Tường (The Wall) rock band, will reunite with other members “in a special way” in an upcoming concert, according to the current leader of the band, guitarist Trần Tuấn Hùng.

The concert, entitled Trở Về (Way Back Home), will be held on April 17 at the National University of Civil Engineering, the band’s second at the venue 21 years after the first.

“Lập and I were always looking forward to the opportunity to re-organise the show to pay tribute to the National University of Civil Engineering and demonstrate our achievements,” said Hùng.

“It is not understandable why such a simple wish has not been fulfilled for the past 21 years. After Lập passed away, we told ourselves that we had to make it by all means,” he added.

Way Back Home was also intended to take place last year to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the establishment of the rock band but was cancelled due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

This year, the event will coincide with the fifth death anniversary of Lập and also mark the 26th anniversary of the founding of Vietnamese students’ favourite rock band.

According to Hùng, The Wall had received a couple of invitations to perform at their former school but waited for the right moment to return for a show with the best sound, lighting and backdrop conditions.

According to Associate Professor Nguyễn Hoàng Giang, Vice-Rector of the National University of Civil Engineering, The Wall has always been the pride of the university.

The music of The Wall has supported the dreams and aspirations of young people in Việt Nam and of the university, he added.

This band’s return trip will feature 20 songs composed in the past 20 years.

“We want to tell the story of where we are from, who we are, how we work, how we contribute, where we have reached and what we can fetch,” said Hùng .

“We have to consider hard which songs to perform in almost every programme and which songs have to be left out. Besides the majority of familiar songs that have been associated with our band’s name, the audience will enjoy new songs included in our 2020 album Con Đường Không Tên (The Untitled Road),” he noted.

Way Back Home also arouses much emotion for guitarist Vũ Văn Hà, a member of The Wall. He recalled that although Lập was not a student of the National University of Civil Engineering, the university was where his career was nurtured.

“I feel that the National University of Civil Engineering meant a lot to Lập himself. In this show, he will come back as an own child of the university,” he said.

Late musician Trần Lập will reunite with other members of The Wall rock band “in a special way” at the upcoming Way Back Home concert, revealed its organisers. Photo plo.vn

The concert organisation board reveals that the former leader of The Wall will re-appear and reunite with other members on the stage of Way Back Home .

“Lập will certainly return in the most special way. For members of The Wall, no one can replace Lập. He has always been present beside us in his own way,” Hùng said.

“Therefore, i nstead of trying to find a replacement for our leader, The Wall has worked with other singers so that the band could continue”.

In the past five years after Lập’s death, The Wall has worked with nearly 30 singers, the most recent of whom is singer Phạm Anh Khoa.

Way Back Home will feature other guest artists, including singer Nguyễn Việt Lâm, the winner of The Wall Cover Singing Contest 2018, singer Phạm Anh Khoa and boy band Kháu that also originated from the National University of Civil Engineering.

The majority of tickets sold have been sold to Civil Engineering University students and only a small amount has been sold to outside fans.

Established on March 26, 1995 from the students’ musical campaign of the National University of Civil Engineering, The Wall first consisted of three members – Trần Lập, Trần Tuấn Hùng and Nguyễn Hoàng.

Many songs by the band became hits, particularly among Vietnamese students, like Đường Đến Ngày Vinh Quang (Road to Glory Day), Tâm Hồn Của Đá (Soul of Stone), Bông Hồng Thủy Tinh (Glass Rose).

At their peak, their leader, main singer and musician Trần Lập died of cancer in 2016. VNS

After a decade of wandering around the world, 35-year-old Hoang Thi Trang, originally from the northern province of Nam Dinh, came back to set up a small café in Ho Chi Minh City with decorations made from recycled materials.

Trang’s husband is a director of the German Chamber of Commerce and Industry whose tenure changes every three years.

Each time they moved, Trang had to revamp her life and profession in a different country, which she refers to as a ‘three-year start-up circle.’

When in Georgia’s capital city of Tbilisi, Trang realized that she was the only Vietnamese living there while local people had no idea what her motherland was.

“How is the war in Vietnam? Are Vietnamese people living in poverty?” were common questions that Georgian people posed to Trang.

To teach others about Vietnam, its culture and people became her mission back then which partly emerges from her background in ethnography.

One of Trang’s friends in Georgia is a silk painter and they planned to bring silk from Vietnam to create her works on.

Other cultural staples of non la (traditional conical hats) or ao dai were also shipped to the country for a small exhibition.

Then Trang introduced Vietnam, especially its silk products.

As the exhibition captured positive attention from the locals, a director of a museum in Tbilisi invited her over for a conversation.

Trang proposed a project on Vietnam for the museum and got approved.

The project was a big hit which opened the door to further collaboration between the Vietnamese woman and the local museum.

She became its official staff later on.

“I do what I love,” she said.

“There are a lot of foreigners knowing nothing about Vietnam so if they are eager to learn, I will try my best to share Vietnamese cultural quintessence with them.”

2,000 promises to Ho Chi Minh City

In 2020, Trang and her husband came back to Vietnam.

After ten years of living abroad, she was motivated to initiate something meaningful.

Observing that popular coffee chains use single-use plastic bottles, Trang along with her two close friends Nguyen Van Tho and Truong Thi Thuong opened an artistic coffee shop with all decorations, tables, and chairs made from recycled materials in District 2.

They assembled thousands of plastic bottles to build an insulation panel.

“There are 2,000 plastic bottles donated by our customers which symbolize 2,000 promises to reduce and recycle plastic for a greener Saigon,” she explained, referring to the former but still popular name of Ho Chi Minh City.

The café opened in December 2020 and has become a favorite haunt of art and recycling circles.

Trang frequently hosts workshops on environmental protection for children there.

She saves a small corner in her shop to exhibit books exclusively on Indochina.

“My hometown is Nam Dinh, where French people opened Nam Dinh Textile Factory during the colonial Indochina period,” said Trang.

“Therefore, I put books on Indochina, sewing techniques, arts, and even an old spinning machine for our guests to catch a brief glimpse of my city.”

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A local man is operating a free-of-charge library in Hanoi, satisfying the reading needs of everybody and creating a convenient space for its visitors to communicate in English.

The library, situated on Kim Ma Street in Ba Dinh District, was launched in early 2020 by 40-year-old Nguyen Thanh Trung, who is also called Harry Trung Nguyen.

Trung founded an English training center right above the library and uses income from the English teaching to maintain his free facility, which he named Mia Bookhouse.

The library’s founder enthusiastically welcomes every visitor and assists them in choosing books to read.

Mia Bookhouse now has more than 1,000 English books and a small number of books in German that he has collected during his travel to more than 50 countries.

In addition, books in Vietnamese may also be found there.

“This library model has been cherished by my love for my little daughter Mia,” Trung said, adding that imbuing children with a habit of reading, especially in those under six, will help promote their development of language, creativity, and imagination.

With an aim to make it convenient for children, Trung designed his Mia Bookhouse uniquely, with box-shaped bookshelves and seats being the steps of the wooden staircase connecting the lower and upper parts of the library.

Trung went to Russia and Germany with his family during his childhood and he later visited many other countries.

His love for travel and his long working in the tourism sector have developed in him a habit of collecting English books from every country he visited.

“I especially love children and I pay special attention to learning foreign languages, so I want to create a space for everybody to naturally develop foreign language skills,” Trung shared.

The library is currently open every Saturday and Sunday morning.

It is staffed by teachers who can guide everybody in choice of books and can communicate in English with every visitor, creating a venue for everyone to use or practice their English skills.

Books for children here have been selected carefully to ensure they are attractive, interesting, and useful to them, Trung said, adding that he is directly involved in the selection.

Trung said he initially created this library to provide English books for children, but he later thought it may be extended to people of different ages.

He has therefore added to Mia Bookhouse a lot of books in various fields, such as literature, history, science, economics, and nature, to satisfy the diverse demands of every book enthusiasts.

The man has also collected many famous works that are hard to buy as they were published in limited quantities.

Trung has recently set up his second free library in the capital, on Nguy Nhu Kon Tum Street in Thanh Xuan District.

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A recent ultra marathon held in a small Ho Chi Minh City neighborhood has brought a lot of attention to the sport’s growing popularity in the southern metropolis.

The 3rd Ultra Night Marathon is an annual ultra marathon with 30km, 50km, and 80km options organized by the Run For Fun (RFF) Club in District 7’s Phu My Hung New Urban Area.

This latest event began at 8:00 pm on December 29 and ended at 8:00 am the following morning.

All of the event’s 127 slots were filled within 48 hours from when registration opened, according to Do Thanh Vi Ngan, RFF’s president.

“We couldn’t allow more runners to participate because it had already been very difficult to get an official permit for the event approved by local authorities,” Ngan elaborated.

“We had to explain to the Phy My Hung management board that the race was only meant for passionate runners.”

On race night, as participants from several of the city’s running clubs, including Vietrun, SBR, PTR, and “Chay Nhu Rua” (Run Like a Tortoise) lined up at the starting line of the 1.9 kilometer course in Nam Vien Park eager to begin their first of dozens of laps, a feeling of community became contagious.

Originally the marathon was organized as a friendly event to say farewell to an RFF member, Ngan recalled.

“Running at night is really fun and can be addictive,” the club president remarked.

That realization led RFF to decide to host the event on an annual basis.

Nguyen Van Long, a member of VietRun Club, not only won the 80km race but chose to run until he chalked up 102km, besting his own goal of 100km.

A young boy participates in the run. Photo: Tuoi Tre

Do Thi Nguyen, another VietRun member, was the event’s best female runner.

Several participants made the trip from nearby provinces to participate in the fun.

Phuc, a member of RFF Bien Hoa in Dong Nai Province, about 35 kilometers northeast of Ho Chi Minh City, is one such runner.

He said his family used to think he was ‘possessed by the Devil’ because he spends so much of his free time running. At one point he was so addicted to pounding the sidewalk that his wife burned his running shoes.

“Not many people run in Bien Hoa. Everyone thought there was something strange about me,” Phuc explained.

According to Hanh Linh, a full-time bank employee by day and RFF media guru by night, the club has ties with 18 other running clubs in the southern metropolis, and several more throughout the rest of the country.

“That’s why we had such diverse groups of participants for the event,” Linh stated.

Runners did not have to pay a fee, Linh continued, adding that the only requisite was that they signed up with two other friends.

“We were able to raise tens of millions of dong [VND10 million = US$430] from sponsors and donated all of the money to a children’s heart surgery fund,” Ngan said.

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