Distinguished guests, dear colleagues and friends, ladies and gentlemen,

I'm honored to present you the first solo show of my paintings in Japan. It is exactly ten years after my previous one-man exhibition held in Hanoi in 1991.

This exhibition displays 28 oil paintings. All but one has been created during my stay in Japan in the last seven years.

I'd like to express my sincere thanks to the Center for Cultural Promotion of Wako City, Mr. Arai Yokichi and his staff members for offering me the opportunity to hold this show here and for their assistance in arranging the exhibition hall from 8:30 this morning until just now.

I thank the Embassy of Vietnam in Japan, Ambassador Vu Dung, and Mrs.Vu Dung for their assistance in organizing this show.

I express my deep gratitude to Professor Arima Akito and Dr. Yano Yasushige, thank to whom I'm now enjoying my research activities at RIKEN in parallel to my art.

A person, who cannot join us today, is Mr. Seki Michio, to whom I'm thankful for his continuous interest and encouragement.

I'm thankful to the RIKEN International Cooperation Office, Public Relation Office for their support in holding this show.

I'm grateful to my wife's friends - Mrs. Takahashi Reiko and Mrs. Takeuchi Hamako for help in organizing this show, Mrs. Jojima Ikuko, Kato Miwako, and Tanaka Noriko for translating the painting titles and texts.

I thank my RIKEN friends - Ms. Catherine Frances for her articles about this show in the I.C.O. News and Tokyo Metropolis, Ms. Iwanami Tomoko for the Japanese translation of the English comments, and Mrs. Kuwana Rie for her translation of the
English texts as well as her professional synchronized translation today.  I'm thankful to Dr. Yoshida Atsushi, our guest, Prof. Pham Quoc Hung of Hanoi University of Natural Science, Mrs. Sakata Noriko and Mrs. Nakamura Toshiko for assistance.

I know that some of you came from so far away. In particular, one of our family friends, Mrs. Oota Phan Thuc Anh just flew here from Saigon (Vietnam) to join this opening. (The audience turns to Mrs. Oota PhanThuc Anh and applauds her, who is busy taking pictures with her new digital camera). Therefore I would like to say "Thank you very much" to all of you  for coming.

Finally, I thank my wife and my son for their love to me and to my art.

I give my acknowledgements in English, and Mrs. Rie Kuwana (center in the photo) translates it into Japanese, while my wife looks on.