(VOVWORLD) - The UK Festival in downtown Hanoi last weekend featured a series of activities, offering a unique opportunity to explore the UK, its culture and others and its connection with Vietnam. Bringing together more than 60 partners, the Festival was an unparalleled experience inviting all individuals to join in celebrating the rich tapestry of UK – Vietnam partnership as well as UK culture and arts. The event is part of activities to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam-UK diplomatic ties.

(VOVWORLD) - Diverse, colorful patterns, shapes and blocks are shared features of Saudi Arabia’s Al-Qatt-Al-Asiri art and the brocade art of Sapa in Vietnam, according to Dr. Hiba Mostafa S. Mahros, the wife of the Saudi Arabian Ambassador to Vietnam. She held a party recently to introduce Al-Qatt Al-Asiri, a traditional style of Saudi interior wall decoration.

(VOVWORLD) - Li is a folk song form practiced by the Chokri people, also known as Chakhesang Naga, in the Northeast of India. Li, the nearly forgotten music of the Chakhesang Naga tribe, one of the major Naga ethnic groups, are unique and specific to the locals’ agrarian lifestyle. In this week’s Cultural Rendezvous, the Tetseo Sisters, a famous Indian folk music band from Nagaland, will help us learn more about the Chokri Li. The band just concluded a Vietnam tour, visiting Hai Duong, Lao Cai, Bac Ninh, Quang Ninh, and Hanoi as part of a cultural program to promote Indian folk music to Vietnamese audiences and to celebrate the 77th Independence Day of India.

(VOVWORLD) - Mantra yoga is seen as one of the easiest ways to achieve the difficult state of internalizing the sense-oriented mind from the external world and focusing on inner consciousness. In Vietnam, more and more people are practicing mantra yoga and consider it a way to relieve the body and mind from daily stress. In this week’s Cultural Rendezvous, Indian yoga master Virender Singh, who has 5 years’ experience teaching yoga in schools in India and 5 years teaching yoga in Hanoi, will give us an insight into this kind of meditation and how to practice it most properly.

(VOVWORLD) - When thinking about Italian specialties, pizza or pasta are usually the first images that come to people’s minds. But do you know that Espresso – the world’s iconic coffee and the base of almost every type of coffee – was invented there in Venice more than 100 years ago?

(VOVWORLD) - Budapest, the capital of Hungary, seamlessly combines its past and present, exemplified by Buda and Pest, the two distinctive halves of the city separated by the Danube River. While Buda offers a tranquil and somewhat stately atmosphere due to green spaces and ancient attractions, its sibling Pest has rapidly become a tourist favorite as the home to buzzing restaurants, cafes, and an endless stream of unique bars and pubs. If you ever wander Pest streets at night and see long queues of well-dressed young people in front of a run-down, dimly-lit building, chances are you may have stumbled upon a ruin pub.

(VOVWORLD) - Iran is famous the world over for its intricate and striking textiles, specifically the handwoven Persian carpet. Carpet weaving is an essential part of Persian culture and Iranian art, and in 2010 was inscribed on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. What makes Persian rugs so popular all over the world? We hope our guest today, Iranian Ambassador to Vietnam Ali Akbar Nazari, will tell us.

(VOVWORLD) - Bhutan is an amazing place in terms of human development, where they do not use GDP as a marker of economic development, but Gross National Happiness as a marker of real development. They do not differentiate between rich and poor. Ngawang Tenzin, a reporter with the Bhutan Broadcasting Service, is back on Cultural Rendezvous this week to explain Bhutan’s “secret” to a happy life.

(VOVWORLD) - Bhutan has, for centuries, viewed happiness as a core responsibility of government. The Gross National Happiness (GNH) Index was formally adopted as a development indicator in Bhutan’s 2008 Constitution and up until last year, Bhutan’s tourism slogan was “Happiness is a Place”. In this week’s Cultural Rendezvous, Ngawang Tenzin, a reporter of Bhutan Broadcasting Service, will help you know more about the GNH index and its implication in Bhutan.

(VOVWORLD) - Have you ever watched or played Floorball? It’s something like indoor hockey and was invented in Sweden. It was introduced to Southeast Asia nearly 10 years ago but has attracted the attention of few people in Vietnam, although floorball is one of the official sports being played at the ongoing SEA Games in Cambodia. For Singapore, it has been a "gold mine" for medals. Christofer Fredriksson, Cultural Promotion Officer with the Swedish Embassy in Vietnam, will tell us something about the sport and what the Embassy is doing to make the sport better-known in Vietnam.