VietNamNet Bridge – The World Records University has offered an Honorary Doctorate degree to two Vietnamese record-holders.

The degrees were granted to record-holders who have achieved excellence in a particular field by identifying and inventing a unique strategy and method to reach that goal.

The records can be related to tradition and culture, history, morality and humanity, sustainable development, education, document storage, country promotion, or creativity.

Veteran composer Vu Dinh An was honoured for two choral works based on masterpieces of Vietnamese literature.

They include poet Nguyen Du's Truyen Kieu (The Tale of Kieu), a story of a beautiful woman and the misfortunes she endures under a feudal regime, and poet Nguyen Dinh Chieu's Luc Van Tien, a love story of Luc Van Tien and Kieu Nguyet Nga. The two works were performed by hundreds of singers in HCM City in 2008 and 2009.

The 58-year-old composer, a member of the Viet Nam's Musicians Association, has written many symphonies and choral works since the 1990s.

Duong Duy Lam Vien, managing director of Viet Nam Books of Records, is the creator of 25 journeys to discover Vietnamese cultural values like cuisine, destinations, people and religion, and to promote them to the world.

In the awards ceremony at the weekend in HCM City, the Asia Book of Records granted Asian records to four Vietnamese record-holders.

They included Huynh Van Rang, 84, the oldest man to reach the peak of Fansipan Mountain four times, and Nguyen Xuan Hoa, who made the largest statue of the Buddhist monk Bodhidharma, 2.56m high and 1.54m wide, made of nu nghien (a species of flowering plant in the Tiliaceate family).

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