(VOVworld) - I’m reading an interesting letter from Radhakrishna Pillai of India. He told us about his participation at the National Council Meeting of Indian Society for Cultural Co-operation and Friendship (ISCUF) held at Guwahati in Assam, a mega event to promote India-Vietnam cultural co-operation and friendship.
B: Mr. Pillai wrote: “As a member of ISCUF National Council, I have attended the colorful event with great pleasure and happiness. In this function I met His Excellency Ton Sinh Thanh the Vietnam ambassador to India, Vu Phuong , Director of Vietnam Intangible Cultural Heritage Promotion Center in Hanoi and members of the cultural troupe from Vietnam. I believe it is one of the happiest and memorable moments in my life. I enclose here with some photos of the event.”
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| Mr Pillai and Ambassador Ton Sinh Thanh |
A: Thank you Mr. Pillai for sharing your experience at that event. We always love to hear listeners’ comments on our stories and your stories about what’s going on in your countries, particularly things relating to Vietnam. Mr. Pillai continued to write: “My sincere thanks to Voice of Vietnam for its enthusiastic and informative programs dedicated to India-Vietnamese Friendship and Co-operation, to mark the 45th anniversary of our two countries diplomatic relations. To celebrate the great event, lot’s of activities take place in different parts of India and Vietnam.”
Mr. Pillai at the Festival
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B: Mr. Pillai has regularly listened to our programs and visited our website. He commented: “My special thanks to VOV for report on, Kong: Skull Island, the tea festival in Moc Chau and the Ban Gioc waterfall etc. Nowadays Vietnam is a favorite destination for film makers. The Super hit movie Pulimurugan in Malayalam film industry, was shot at different locations in Vietnam. I would like to know popular film locations in Vietnam.”
A: Vietnam is open for business and offers exotic and adventurous locations for filming industry. Although Vietnam has no official filming sites, I think the bustling cities and many untapped locations here that film themselves.
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| A filming site in Ninh Binh province of Kong: Skull islands |
B: Vietnamese film makers can easily find suitable places to film stories of different themes and historical periods such as the wartime, background in a remote mountain villages or modern, urban city, life of royal families and feudal regimes.
A: Vietnam is a long narrow country with a wide array of beautiful location types. Most people are familiar with images of dense jungle in wartime movies but Vietnam also has spectacular mountains, amazing beaches, evocative rice fields and zigzagging riverways of the Mekong Delta. Architecture of the feudal and colonial periods can be found in Hanoi, Hue, Ho Chi Minh City, and smaller towns along the coast.
B: Some locations like Halong Bay in the north and the Cu Chi tunnels in the south are world-famous but I think Vietnam is generally under-exploited by film-makers. In addition to the above sights, you can find waterfalls, sand dunes, plantations, markets and ancient ruins.
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| A scene on "I saw yellow flowers on green grass" filmed in Phu Yen province |
A: Vietnam has a very young film industry which allows for many productions to film in previously unseen and unexploited locations around the country. Many movies about the Vietnam War were filmed here, including The Quiet American. Some large Hollywood productions have taken advantage of Vietnam’s natural beauty to shoot scenes, with the movie Pan, based on the Peter Pan books, using several locations across Vietnam. The town of Phong Nha was recently home to a large film crew who were shooting Kong: Skull Island, a reboot of the King Kong franchise.
B: Films that deal with the French colonial period in Indochina (as it then was) seem to have been more likely to locate in Vietnam, examples being Indochine and L'Amant or The Lover. While the film business is yet to take off in a big way, Vietnam does host documentary productions, usually about the war or its aftermath, and has also hosted reality TV shows like The Bachelor, The Amazing Race and Bizarre Foods.
A: After the shooting of Kong: Skull Island, many travel companies have offered tours along the filming itinerary: Halong Bay, impressive sceneries at Van Long Nature Reserve and Trang An grottoes in Ninh Binh province, and Son Doong, the world’s biggest and longest cave.
B: Now, let’s continue to read letters from other listeners. Richard Nowak of the US emailed us on April 10: “I enjoyed tonight’s show on 7315 kHz from 0:00 to 0:27 UTC. The first 15 minutes reception had SINPO at 45444. Reception for the rest of the show was a solid 5 listening with an Icom IC-R75 hooked up to an 80 meter off center fed dipole.”
A: We’re glad to know that the transmission was good on 7315khz. Besides informative pieces of news, Richard said the Sunday Show was great with the segment on improvisational comedy. He wrote “The Hanoi Improvisation Club, typewriter games, listening being important, short form, long form, can be a mix of drama and comedy, comics want to popularize improvisation and comics want to have an improvisation club and festival. This segment was great! I enjoyed learning about improvisation in Vietnam and hope the comics see their vision come true. Great show!”
B: Richard is a regular listener of VOV and he sends us reception reports on a daily basis. On April 6th he wrote: “A discussion of high tech applied to administrative functions and digitalizing administration was very interesting. The Letter Box show gave a great detailed discussion of embroidery pictures and the embroidery craft villages. This was very interesting and educational.”
A: We sincerely appreciate your reception reports and your understanding of our busy work when you wrote: “Dear VOV no need to send a QSL card for each report. I must have several copies of each VOV QSL card. Once a month is fine. This will save postage and time for the office staff. I’m happy to hear VOV’s shows.”
B: Thank you very much Richard for your understanding, complement and support for VOV and shortwave in general. We love to receive a daily note from you. We wish you a successful business trip to New Orleans this week and don’t miss a VOV broadcast.
A: Mr. Bhaikan Hazarika of India emailed us on April 9th saying that he listened to our program on 7280 khz and rated SINPO 43343. He also enjoyed the Sunday Show about comedy in theaters and found it entertaining and inspiring.
B: This week we acknowledge letters from Eddy Witanto of Indonesia, Miss. Siyaram, Deekay Dimple of India, Dr. Shahinur Alam of Bangladesh, and Damon Privett of the US.
A: Thank you all very much for your reception reports, listeners. We welcome your feedback. Please send reports to English Section, Overseas Service, Voice of Vietnam, 45 Ba Trieu Street, Hanoi, Vietnam. Our email address is englishsection@vov.org.vn. Thank you for listening. Join us again next Wednesday for another Letter Box show. Goodbye from both of us to all of you.