A: Welcome to VOV’s Letter Box. This feature airs every Wednesday. First of all, on behalf of all the English section staff, we would like to say thank you for your best wishes and greetings to us on Christmas and New Year. Yesterday, one of our regular listeners from England, Edwin Southwell, phoned us to say best wishes for the New Year. It touched us so much. He said he had received our QSLs, our 2013 calendar, and some other gifts. We hope that, like Edwin, you’ve received everything you expected.
B: Though Vietnam is a Buddhist country that follows the lunar calendar, most young people here have embraced the solar New Year as a major holiday. So, once again, let us wish our dear listeners a Happy New Year. This week Muhammad Shamin of Keralam State in India reported listening to our program on December 20th on 9640 kHz from 02.30 to 03.00 UTC. He said he found our report about social security in Vietnam interesting and the reception was good. Muhammad had two questions for us: what was the first private TV channel in Vietnam and which is the most popular film festival in Vietnam?
A: Regarding your question about the first private TV channel in Vietnam, to date, we have a socialized TV industry with limited participation and investment by private companies.
B: Vietnam Television, or VTV, is the national television broadcaster for Vietnam. The first television broadcasts in Vietnam were made in the 1960s and color television was introduced in 1978. Vietnam Television became an official name on April 30, 1987.
A: VTV's regional broadcasting centers are located in Ho Chi Minh City, Hue, Da Nang, Phu Yen, Nha Trang, Can Tho, Vinh and Tam Dao. Programming is relayed nationwide via a network of provincial and municipal television stations. There are transmitters in most outlying areas of the country. As of 2003, more than 80% of all urban households owned a television set.
B: Every major city and most of the 64 provinces and have their own television stations. VTV has its own film production company, the Vietnam Television Film Center, which makes made-for-television movies and miniseries.
A: We hope you’re satisfied with the information we just gave about Vietnamese TV, Muhammad. Regarding your second question, the Vietnam Film Festival is considered the event of Vietnam’s cinematography with awards given in several categories including feature film, direct-to-video, and documentary film. The festival is held every two or three years in a different host city each time.
B: The first Vietnam Film Festival was held in 1970 in Hanoi. The most prestigious prizes of the festival are the Golden Lotus, the Silver Lotus, and the Special Jury Prize. Since 2003 there’s also been the Vietnamese International Film Festival, a biennial festival organized by the non-profit Vietnamese-American Arts & Letters Association and the Vietnamese Language and Culture department of the University of California, Los Angeles.
B: You’re listening to VOV’s Letter Box, broadcast every Wednesday. Now let’s check the letters and emails we received during the week. First, we’d like to say hello to S.B. Sharma who says he has written several emails and sent them to vovnews.vov.org.vn but didn’t receive any replies.
A: We’re sorry to tell you that you sent to the wrong email address. Our address is englishsection@vov.org.vn. Again, that’s englishsection@vov.org.vn. For program schedules, please visit our website at: www.vovworld.vn, where you can also find the text of previously broadcast features, and news, as well as audio files.
B: We would like to say congratulations to Rasel Sikder, one of our regular listeners in Bangladesh, for setting up a radio club called in English ‘searching for knowledge’. We’re sorry we don’t know how to pronounce your club’s name in the Bangladeshi language.
A: It’s nice to know that the 10-member club often listens to VOV and visits our webpage. Your attention to our programs encourages us to do both radio and webpage better in the future.
B: Recently we’ve received lots of letters and emails from DX clubs around the world. Most of them have expressed delight to have tuned in to VOV. They have even asked us to act as a bridge linking club members.
A: This week, although we haven’t been able to become a real ‘matchmaker’, we’ll just mention the names of the clubs, their countries, and their email addresses. If you make a mistake noting any email address, please double check it on our website at www.vovworld.vn.
B: First there’s the Friends’ Online DX Association in Bangladesh whose email address is akmn@librabd.net; the Universal DX Club in Assam, India, can be reached at dx.universal@gmail.com; the Digdarshan Radio Club in Rajshahi, Bangladesh, is at d.radioclub@yahoo.com; and the newly-established club in Bangladesh that we just mentioned named ‘Gyan Bikash Kendra Radio Club’ or Searching for Knowledge Radio Club’ is at raselsikder2007@yahoo.com
A: In future broadcasts, we’ll mention more shortwave radio clubs in the hope of linking all DXers. On every Letter Box show, we try to mention as many listeners as possible, so hello, Fumito Hokamura of Japan, a royal listener to the English program; Yoshihiro Kusunagi of Oto-ku, Tokyo, Japan, Avijit Mondal of Nadia District, West Bengal, India, and the rest of you. These listeners sent us letters or emails with reports of the English programs they heard and comments on technical aspects and program content. We greatly appreciate this feedback.
A: Dear listeners, your reception reports were all complete enough for us to send you letters of confirmation. If your name wasn’t mentioned this week, don’t feel left out. We’ll try to acknowledge you next time.
B: That’s it for today’s Letter Box. Please keep in touch. We 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. 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 broadcasts and previously recorded programs.
Bao Tram