A: Welcome to VOV’s Letter Box. This feature airs every Wednesday. This week, we received lots of letters and emails from listeners around the world with many questions about Vietnam. Thank you for the love you send to us. First, we’d like to mention Fumito Hokamura of Fukuoka-ken, Japan. He’s one of our most loyal listeners.

B: This week, we got six letters from Fumito. That means he sent us one almost every day and in each letter, there were a couple of questions. This week, we’ll answer one of them and hope that Fumito will forgive us for not answering more.

A: Fumito wants to know about Vietnam’s wet rice cultivation, which is important to the nation’s food supply and to the national economy. Vietnam is one of the world's richest agricultural regions and the second-largest exporter of rice and coffee. It’s also one of the world's largest consumers.  

 

 

Ethnic minorities in mountainous areas practice wte- rice-cultivation on terraces. (Photo: maichautrek.com)

B: With its two huge deltas: the Mekong in the south and the Red River in the north, from time immemorial the Vietnamese have known how to build dykes to prevent flooding and create more land for wet –rice cultivation.  Generally, we cultivate two types, sticky rice and ordinary rice. The first is used more for special events and ceremonies such as Tet, the Lunar New Year, and weddings. Ordinary rice is eaten at every meal.

A: Talking about wet-rice-cultivation, Vietnamese has a proverb that is literally translated as ‘First one needs water, then fertilizers, then diligence, and finally high quality seed’. In the north, there are two rice crops and one secondary crop.

B: The winter –spring crop is planted in the 12th lunar month and harvested in the fourth month. The summer –autumn crop grows from the sixth to the 10th lunar month. Between these crops there is time for the land to heal and maize, taro, potato and sweet potato are often planted.

A: Before planting a crop, farmers prepare the land by emptying the water from each field, then ploughing deep and raking it carefully with the help of their buffalo. In order to prepare the soil, fertilizer is put down, either natural or chemical. Water is constantly needed, too. Using the correct variety of rice is very important.

B: Normally, the best seeds from previous crops are selected, using techniques passed down through generations. In cool winter weather, straw ash is mixed with the paddy to keep it warm. When the roots reach two to three centimeters, rice can be planted in a small nursery area.

A: During this period the young rice plants need water, but not too much. After one month, the young shoots are picked and the rice seedling is transplanted into another field. Working the fields requires diligence. During the three- and-a- half months of rice development you have to constantly watch your field! You need to pull out any weeds growing with the rice. This work is normally done by  women.

B: The ethnic minorities in mountainous areas practice wet-rice-cultivation on terraces. It is not until you actually take off your shoes, roll up your trousers and muck in that you really appreciate the skill and energy required to harvest rice. Fortunately, machines are now used to separate the paddy and straw.

A: Famers in the south harvest three crops a year and the cultivation technique is different. As rice farming becomes more mechanized, traditional wooden farm tools and older strains of rice are preserved. According to an expert on Vietnamese rice, older rice varieties still have useful characteristics...They can grow in acid sulfate and saline soil and in submerged areas. They are tasty and have a popular flavour that should be preserved for cross breeding. Among the 1,600-plus varieties of rice grown in the delta, a unique variety is "floating" rice — its several-foot-long stems keep it above rising floodwaters.

 

B: You’re listening to VOV’s Letter Box, broadcast every Wednesday. The song you just heard was ‘Singing in the rice field’ performed by Thu Minh. The song describes busy but happy female farmers on a Hau River rice farm in the Mekong Delta province of Hau Giang. Now let’s check other letters and emails we received during the week.

A: Another question sent to us this week is from Ratan Kumar Paul from Dinajpur, West Bengal, India. He’s a teacher and a coordinator of the South Asia CRI DXER Forum in Dakshin district. He wants to learn more about the first national radio station of Vietnam. Dear Ratan, the national radio broadcaster of Vietnam is Radio the Voice of Vietnam or VOV. Our first transmission was made on September 2, 1945, when President Ho Chi Minh read out the Vietnamese Declaration of Independence.

B: Over the years, VOV has offered diverse, high-quality programming in every for of mass media. It broadcasts on many channels, repeated on Medium wave, FM, and shortwave bands throughout Vietnam and the rest of the world. VOV’s programs now reach about 99.5% of the country’s populated areas. (Source: http://tnvn.gov.vn)

A: This week we received many letters and emails from listeners who confirmed that they had received New Year greeting cards, QSLs recognizing their listening reports, and some small gifts from VOV. We’re very happy to hear that they’re listening to our shortwave broadcasts and also logging onto our website, and that they like the web page very much.

B: Do you know that your feedback encourages us a lot. On every Letter Box show we try to mention as many listeners as possible, so hello, Prithwiraj Purkayastha of Assam, India; Muralidhar of Rajajinagar, Bangalore, India; Jayanta Chakrabarty of New Delhi, India; Toshiya Nishimura of Hinode Fukui-shi, Japan; Jack Wachtershauser of Kelmscott, Australia; Grant Skinner of Essex, UK, William Patalong of Maryland, the US, and all the rest of you.

A: To Raymond Crawford of Kingarory, Australia; we would like to say sorry for not having updated your postal address, so our mails and gifts are still going to your previous address. All 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