On parade: A procession features different images of President Ho on Saturday. The activity is among cultural events organised during the Sen Village Festival celebrating Uncle Ho's birth. — VNA/VNS Photo Thanh Tung

The show was broadcast live from Ba Dinh Square in Hanoi and Kim Lien Village in the central province of Nghe An, where Ho was born.

It included talks with foreign and domestic researchers, war veterans in Hanoi as well as recorded meeting with scholars in Britain and France. Various songs, dances by local and foreign artists were sprinkled throughout the show.

"He came here to learn, to read and to study English. He started earning money clearing snow. His friends said his hands became swollen after hours of shovelling snow. He worked with thin clothes." These were the words used by John Callow, director of Archives at the Marx Memorial Library in London.

Audience were shown a small room in the basement of the Carlton Hotel in London where Nguyen Ai Quoc worked as a pastrycook in 1913. He used to write new English words on his arms to learn while working as he had no time to wash his hands and write them down.

Came to learn

"It is hard to know how many books he read in two years in the United Kingdom. We know for sure that he came here to learn, not to earn a living," noted Len Aldis, general secretary of UK-Vietnam Friendship Association.

Lady Borton, an American scholar, said in his first 10 years travelling abroad, Ho Chi Minh met many difficulties because he was totally alone.

Borton said she appreciated Ho Chi Minh's extraordinary capability to be able to select talented people and combine them. "He always thought about his people, not about power for himself," she said.

Nearly 80 works of art by 70 artists from around the country are on display at the Ho Chi Minh Museum in Hanoi.

The works, entitled Chu Tich Ho Chi Minh – Nguoi Khoi Nguon Sang Tao (President Ho Chi Minh – Creation Inspirer) depicts 79 years in the life of the President. They represent various genres, including painting, graphics, sculpture, literature and music. .

The Vietnam Journalists Association has found its own way to celebrate President Ho's birthday, through an exhibition featuring Ho Chi Minh with Vietnam's revolutionary journalism at the headquarters of the association in Duong Dinh Nghe Street, Cau Giay District, Hanoi.

More than 200 photos and objects display Nguyen Ai Quoc working as a journalist and his meetings with journalists all over the world. The exhibition focuses on three topics: Nguyen Ai Quoc, the foundation builder for Vietnam Revolutionary Journalism; Journalist Ho Chi Minh; and how Vietnam Journalism has been inspired by Ho Chi Minh's moral example.

From the first article written in France in 1919, Ho Chi Minh left behind a large heritage of over 2,000 articles under dozens of pen names published in many countries throughout the world, which are pieces making up the entire picture of the era.