A: Hello and welcome to VOV’s regular Wednesday feature, The Letter Box. Among the letters and emails we received during the week, we’d like to begin with Rattan Kumar Paul, a teacher and co-coordinator of the South Asia Cri DXer Forum in India. Rattan wrote to us earlier to say that the club planned to organize a DX exhibition and request some gifts from VOV. But he says they haven’t received anything yet.
B: We‘d like to congratulate Rattan and his club-mates for successfully holding the event. Through your description we could feel the excitement and joy of the exhibition, but we’re also sad you didn’t receive any of our presents to show off on that day.
A: We did send you some stickers, QSL cards, broadcast schedules, and frequency lists as soon as we received your previous letter. As you know, we often mention that if you haven’t received what you requested, it might be that the gifts got stuck somewhere along the way. So please don’t be angry with us. We’re doing all we can to keep you satisfied.
B: Rattan said the exhibition coincided with India’s 66th Independence Day and he wants to know about Vietnam’s National Day which falls on September 2nd.
A: Each year when the cool weather of autumn arrives, Vietnamese people celebrate Vietnam’s National Day with cultural and sports events – not just in Vietnam but around the world. On September 2 it has become a tradition to hang red flags along the streets and on every corner.
B: Vietnam observes 6 public holidays a year. Like most countries in the world, Vietnamese takes a day off to celebrate the New Year on the 1st of January. During the final two days of the last lunar month and the first 3 days of the first lunar month, Vietnam celebrates Tet, the Vietnamese New Year, which is the most important holiday of the year. This usually occurs in late January or early February.
A: Tet is followed by the Hung Kings Commemoration on the 10th day of the 3rd lunar month, Liberation Day, also called Reunification Day, on April 30th, International Workers’ Day on May 1st, and National Day on September 2nd. As in most other nations, if a holiday falls during the weekend, it is observed on the following Monday.
B: The most important holiday of the year, Tet, is impossible to ignore as public institutions are closed. Only a few stores and restaurants remain open during these 5 days.
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| In the 2012 - 2013 academic year, Vietnam has about 22 million schoolers |
A: Every September, there’s an important day affecting many Vietnamese, especially children. That’s the first day of a new academic year on September 5th. More than 20 million pupils and students just began the 2012 – 2013 academic year - 4 million preschoolers, 15 million primary, middle, and highs schoolers, and 2 million university and college students.
B: This academic year is the second year of Vietnam’s new education development strategy until 2020, which is focused on producing highly qualified human resources and effecting comprehensive educational reforms.
A: A highlight of this academic year will be the Ministry of Education and Training’s launch of a pilot program establishing a new educational model in 1,447 primary schools nationwide. The model focuses on innovative pedagogical activities, promoting students self-teaching and self-assessment, and redesigning the review and assessment of students’ achievements.
B: The model will encourage and develop better teaching and learning methods for ethnic minority students, those living in difficult circumstances and those with disabilities.
A: You’re listening to VOV’s Letter Box, broadcast every Wednesday. The song you just heard was the first day of a new academic year. Now here’s a letter from Ian Baxter of Australia. It has been 32 years since Ian last wrote a letter to VOV. He writes: ‘back then I was in my third year of High School. I’ve intended to write many times and made notes to do so but something would always distract me from completing the job’.
B: Dear Ian, we’re happy to say “welcome you back to VOV”. We know that when people are young, they’re often too busy with their lives to arrange time to do something like write a letter. Even for relatives or close friends, we barely have enough time to make a quick phone call. But now we know you always remembered us and kept us in your heart, because after 32 years, with a little more spare time, you’ve come back to your one-time hobby.
A: Reading your detailed description of how you first came to know VOV programs and your feedback on our website, we see how interested you are in shortwave broadcasting and learning about tourist attractions of Vietnam, especially around Hanoi. Your appraisal of the audio programs on our website encourages us to make even more audio files available to our beloved listeners.
B: An interesting piece in this week’s Letter Box is a letter from Hazairin Junep of Indonesia who sent us an email when he was on the way to Vietnam from San Petersburg, Moscow, and Khabarovsk, Russia. Hazairin tuned in to VOV programs not only in English but also in German, Russian, Japanese and Chinese and the signal was heard clearly.
A: Although Hazairin didn’t send us a detailed report of what he heard, we are still sympathetic with him as Hazairin was in a hurry to join the Esperanto Congress in Hanoi. 2012 was a special year for Vietnamese Esperantists as Vietnam was honored to host the 97th World Esperanto Congress, together with two other events, the International Youth Congress for Esperanto - UK97 - and an Esperanto Congress for children.
B: Esperanto came to Vietnam in the early 1900s. Though it’s not very popular now, the language is widely known as an international language designed to create mutual understanding among nations for the sake of peace shared prosperity.
A: During its struggle for national liberation and independence, Vietnam received much support from peace – lovers around the globe including the Esperantists. Therefore, the hosting of UK97 gave Vietnam a chance to thank our international friends for their support and introduce the image of a peace-loving nation on the path to development and international integration.
B: How about you, Hazairin? When did you begin to learn Esperanto? We’d love to know more about you and your love of Esperanto. We hope in your next letter or email, you’ll introduce yourself in more details.
A: On every Letter Box show, we try to mention as many listeners as possible. This week we welcome Mark Burns from Washington, in the US. Mark now aged 65, was on a supply ship off the coast of Vietnam in 1965. Hello also to Rodrigo D.Renacia of Davao city, Philippines, a member of the International Listening Post Davao SW Radio Listeners Club; Patrick Robic of Leibnitz, Austria; Alessandro Errichetti of Rome; Massimiliano Scordamaglia of Montombraro, Italy; Bob Nagel of Pittsburgh, USA and all you others.
B: All these listeners sent us either letters or emails with detailed reports on the English programs they heard and comments both technical and content related. We highly appreciate these. Dear listeners, your reception reports were all sufficient for us to send you letters of confirmation. If your name wasn’t mentioned this week, don’t feel bad. We’ll try to acknowledge you next time.
A: That’s it for today’s Letter Box. Please keep in touch. We really look forward to receiving your comments and suggestions. Our contact address is: The English Program, Overseas Service, Radio Voice of Vietnam, 45 Ba Trieu Street, Hanoi, Vietnam.
B: Or you can email us at: englishsection@vov.org.vn. And if you miss any of our programs, you can always catch up by logging onto our website at www.vovworld.vn where you can hear both live and recorded programs. Good bye until next time.
Bao Tram