B: Streets in major cities have been beautifully decorated for Christmas. Many big hotels have displayed at their entrance a Santa Claus carrying a bag of toys on a sleight pulled by reindeers.

A: Vietnam is a tropical country, so we don’t have real pine trees. Plastic trees of all sizes are used instead to decorate offices and homes. Streets that sell decorative items for festivals - Hang Ngang, Hang Dao, Hang Ma, and Hang Chieu – are now selling Christmas trees, sparkling ornaments and lights, holly wreaths, and Santa Claus costumes.

A scene for Christmas outside a shopping mall

B: These streets in the heart of Hanoi’s Old Quarter sell merchandise appropriate to the current holiday. Just before Christmas, the streets are full of foreign tourists and Christmas shoppers buying Christmas cards, reasonably prized Christmas gifts, and decorations for their Christmas trees.

A: A walk through Hanoi’s Old Quarter may remind foreigners of their hometown with Christmas trees standing in front of restaurants, snowmen guarding ice-cream shops and Santa Claus delivering gifts on motorbikes. As we get closer to Christmas, we’ll talk more about Christmas customs.

Shops sell several kinds of Christmas decorative items

B: Christmas is one of the four most important holidays of the Vietnamese year, along with Buddha’s Birthday, the Lunar New Year, and Mid-Autumn Festival. The main Vietnamese religions are Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism. During French colonial rule, many Vietnamese became Catholics and Catholics now are 8 to 10 percent of Vietnam’s population. All Vietnamese, however, whether Catholic or non-Catholic, enjoy the festive atmosphere of Christmas.

Christmas ornaments

A: Christmas in Vietnam is a huge event, especially in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. Vietnamese Christmas celebrations are like in any city in the western world. Christians attend a midnight mass on Christmas Eve at one of Vietnam’s thousands of churches and chapels and return home to a sumptuous Christmas dinner, which may include anything from chicken soup to imported turkey and Christmas pudding.

B: Catholic churches often have a big nativity scene or 'creche' with life size statues of Mary, Joseph, baby Jesus, the shepherds, and animals. In Ho Chi Minh City, Catholic parishes, some people have a crèche in front of their house and decorate the whole street with Christmas lights.

Ham Long church or Saint Antoine is a Roman Catholic Church in the center of Hanoi

A: While Catholics go home for a family reunion on Christmas Eve and stay at home on Christmas Day, young non-Catholics celebrate joyously with friends thronging city streets on Christmas Eve. Christmas Day is not a national day and people don’t have the day off. Only those who work for foreign organizations get a Christmas vacation.

B: During Christmas week, with the theme "Christmas Love", central and local administrations deliver gifts to orphans, lonely elderly, disabled people, and families living in difficult circumstances. Social workers, volunteers, directors of shelters and reception centres work hard to bring the happiness and peace of Christmas to less fortunate people.

Notre-Dame Cathedral Basilica  of in Ho Chi Minh city

A: This week, VOV has sent out hundreds of greeting cards, calendars, and frequency lists to our listeners. We hope most of you will receive them before New Year. Some may not, due to postal problems, but we trust that sooner or later our gifts will reach you.

B: Juan Carlos Gil of Spain emailed us on November 12, saying “I especially enjoy your programs about history, nature, tradition, and culture. I’m a student of the English language, and I agree with an Indian listener who said in your Letter Box program that listening to your programs is the perfect way to learn the language: good signal, voices, and speaking.”

B: Well, thank you very much Gil, for the compliment. We’ve checked your reception reports for programs in August and will acknowledge them with QSL cards. We hope to receive more feedback from you in the future. From the US, Richard Nowak emailed us, saying that he enjoyed the show on December 11, on 7315 kHz, listening with an Icom IC-R75 hooked up to an outdoor active loop mounted at 6 meters. Reception was rated 43333. Another station was interfering for the duration of the show.

A: I hope Richard can identify the station that interfered. As usual he jotted down the things that most interested him: a photo and artifact exhibition in Hanoi to honor heroic generations who resisted foreign invaders, the World Bank’s continued support for Vietnam, and Vietnam’s transformation from one of the world’s poorest countries to a middle income country in just 3 decades. It is an inspiration to all, Richard said.

B: Our Sunday Show focused on Xam singing, a traditional form of folk music. Richard wrote: “An interview with a music center about how this type of singing is used at weddings and funerals. The singing is also performed in crowded trains and market places. Xam singing was the ‘art of the poor’ in the past. The melodies are easy to learn, ancient values are remembered and past images are recalled. The songs that have been preserved are suitable for all ages. The Xam singing on the Sunday Show was a great and interesting segment!”

A: This week we acknowledge letters from Timm Breyel of Malaysia, Shivendu Paul , President of the Metali Listeners’ Club of India, Antonio Ribeiro da Motta of Brazil, Johnelle Roseanna Lakeland of the UK, Mizanur Raman of Bangladesh, and Mrs. Sandhya Rani of India. We’ll verify your reception reports and hope our QSL cards will reach all of you soon.

B: We welcome your letters at 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. Please join us again next Wednesday for another Letter Box edition. Goodbye.