(VOVworld) - I’m reading an interesting letter from 61-year-old Lauri Niemi of Finland. He lives in a Helsinki surburb called Laajasalo, which actually is an island in the Gulf of Finland. “This is a quiet, green place to live. I’m recently divorced so I have a lot of time for my radio hobby. Besides D’Xing and radio I collect books. DX-ing or trying to catch foreign radio stations, has been my main hobby since 1968. That is 46 years now. In that time I have heard and identified about 1,200 stations from 205 countries.”
B: There’s a photo of Lauri sitting in front of his huge book collection. Wow, such a treasure. Lauri said he and his friends bought one sq.km of lakes, ponds, creeks, and swamp. The place is called Aihkiniemi, which means “the Old Pine Cabin”. On this lot they put up 11 antennas, each 700 to 1,000 m long.
A: Your photos and DVD show us an amazing place. I’m very curious to see your listening facilities, including the antennas you stretched over a frozen lake. I’m imagining a region of ponds, lakes, and swamp similar to Vietnam’s Mekong delta region. But the weather, fauna, and flora must be quite different. Vietnam’s Mekong delta has plenty of rain and it’s hot and humid all year long. The land produces many kinds of delicious tropical fruits. The ponds and lakes are an abundant source of fish and water vegetables.
B: Lauri told us that last October he and his friend Markku Jussila used a Perseus multi-channel receiver connected to an ACER laptop. The conditions were good, nearly excellent, and he heard hundreds of new stations including VOV.
A: We listened to Lauri’s DVD and audio files of programs from local radio stations in Vietnam. Although there is a lot of static noise and it’s difficult to hear clearly, we recognized some as FM broadcasts of radio dramas in Vietnamese.
B: We’re sorry to have to remind you that VOV’s World Service only verifies reports of our own programs, which are broadcast overseas in Vietnamese, English, German, Spanish, French, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Indonesian, Lao, Thai, and Cambodian. A lot of listeners have sent us reports of local stations in Vietnam but we can’t verify them. We’ll send you a frequency list and a program guide to make it easier for you to tune in to our channel. We hope to receive more reports from you soon. For more information about VOV’s World Service, please go to our website vovworld.vn.
A: Here I have an email and reception reports from Juan Carlos Gil of Spain. These reports date back to January and February. Although they are pretty old, we’ve checked and found they tallying with our station log. So we’ll send you some QSL cards soon.
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Vu lan, the season of filial peity
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B: Westerners celebrate Mothers’ Day on the second Sunday in May to show their appreciation of mothers. Vietnamese dedicate the full moon day of the 7th lunar month to expressing filial piety to both their parents. The Vu Lan festival is closely connected to the Asian tradition of ancestor worship and filial piety. We’ll tell you about the festival after this break.
A: Each year Vietnamese people honor their parents and welcome the souls of their ancestors back to earth on the full-moon day of the 7th lunar month. This year it will fall on Friday, June 28.
B: The legend behind the festival dates back to the earliest days of Buddhism. Muc Kieu Lien was one of the Buddha's ten principle disciples. One day while he was meditating, he saw his late mother being tortured in hell for the sins she had committed during her life. He saw that his mother was starving, but had nothing to eat. Muc Kieu Lien summoned all his spiritual powers to bring her a bowl of rice, but the food burned to ashes in front of her.
Offerings for wandering souls on Vu Lan Day |
A: Muc Kieu Lien returned to the living world and asked the Buddha to help him to fulfill his duty as a pious son. The Buddha advised him to gather monks and devotees and ask them to pray together on the 15th day of the 7th lunar month. Their combined prayers were so powerful that the god of hell released Muc Kieu Lien’s mother and many other souls. Ever since during the festival of Vu Lan - Wandering Soul’s Day- the gate of hell is believed to open to give tormented souls a 24-hour holiday.
B: Many other Buddhist countries share the Vietnamese custom of offering food, clothing, and other items to hungry spirits. The object of this annual custom is to feed the hungry ghosts and pray for their salvation and for living people to express their gratitude and appreciation to their living mothers. Traditionally Buddhist followers visit pagodas wearing red roses if their parents are alive and white roses if their parents have passed away. The rose is a symbol of love and sharing between parents and children regardless of social background.
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| People go to pagoda to pray for their parents on Vu Lan Day |
A: The festival is no longer exclusively for Buddhists. It has become an occasion for everyone to express their love for their parents.
B: Many visitors to our web page have posted comments and requests. Ng Hong Ming of Singapore read a story called “Mid-Autumn traditional toys”, from September 3, 2014. He wants to hear more about the craft of making toys for children during the autumn full-moon festival.
A: Vietnam, like many other Asian countries, will celebrate the Mid-Autumn festival next month. We’ll have some in-depth stories about the festival in the coming weeks. S.B Sharma of India said a video about the Thai Phien flower village was very attractive. “The 2-minute video described all the steps of growing good flowers. If it’s possible please provide more detailed information on the Thai Phien flower village in your next VOV Letter Box show.”
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| Peach blossom in Nhat Tan flower village in Hanoi |
B: The Thai Phien flower village is a famous flower hub in Da Lat. We’ll definitely bring this topic back in a future Letter Box edition. Ali Benchohra read an article about folk games and festivals and wrote: “The Vietnamese government has provided its people a lot of recreational and cultural opportunities, especially popular festivals that make the citizens happy. Their lives are filled with smiles and peace of mind. I hope to attend one of these unique and interesting festivals.”
A: Before we go, we’d like to express our sincere thanks to all of our listeners for your greetings on Vietnam’s National Day on September 2 and VOV’s 70th founding anniversary on Sep 7. We especially thank Amir Jameel, a shortwave enthusiast of Pakistan, for calling our station last week to share his thought of our programs. He congratulated us on Vietnam’s National Day and VOV’s anniversary.
B: That’s all for today. Remember that you can listen to this program again on our website at www.vovworld.vn. Please send your feedback to: English section, World Service, Radio Voice of Vietnam, 45 Ba Trieu Street, Hanoi, Vietnam. Our email address is englishsection@vov.org.vn. Good bye until next time.