“Vang son ky my – the essence of Vietnamese craftsmanship” is something that photographer Nguyen Phong is particularly passionate about as he introduced to Thua Thien Hue Weekly a series of photos showcasing “the golden hands” of artisans perfecting the process of applying gold leaf and lacquer to the columns of Thai Hoa Palace.

On cold winter days, the red Sau Sau leaves fall, leaving bare branches. At this time, the Sau Sau forest evokes a sense of wandering into unfamiliar lands.

Thua Thien Hue is a region with many dishes honored in the “Journey to find the cultural value of typical Vietnamese cuisine” including Hue beef noodles, tapioca dumplings stuffed with roasted pork sweet soup, mussel rice, tapioca dumplings, mixed vegetarian fig salad, vegetarian rice steamed in lotus leaf.

Thua Thien Hue has the most dishes honored in Phase I of the project, including Hue beef noodle soup, tapioca dumpling stuffed with roasted pork sweet soup, mussel rice, tapioca dumplings, vegetarian fig salad, and vegetarian steamed rice wrapped in lotus leaf.

These are 6 of 121 Vietnamese culinary dishes that have just been honored by the Vietnam Cuisine Culture Association (VCCA) as typical national dishes in phase I of a project titled "Building and Developing Vietnamese Culinary Culture into a National Brand Name”. All of these 6 dishes, including: Hue beef noodle soup, glutinous rice dumplings stuffed with roasted pork in sweet soup, mussel rice, banh loc (glutinous rice dumplings), vegetarian fig salad, and lotus-leaf-wrapped steamed rice; all are close to the gardens and paddy fields of the land.

Located 5 kilometers away from the center of Hue City to the North, Duc Buu village (Huong So Ward, Hue City) specializes in producing famous specialty dumplings of the ancient capital land, including: banh beo, banh loc goi (the Vietnamese clear shrimp and pork dumpling wrapped in banana leaf), banh nam, and banh ram it, etc.

The Union of Arts and Literature Associations and Hue Children's House have just launched an art club called “Nhanh co non” or “the young palm leaves”, to foster children's art movement in Hue city.

The azadirachta indica tree by An Cuu River this morning is in bloom with purple flowers. A few days ago, the leaf canopy was still green, but early morning today, in the sprinkling rain, the "purple clouds" have unexpectedly appeared on top of the branches.