(VOVWORLD) - This week we sent our greetings to Saif Khan, a 10th grader and President of the Learner Listeners Zone in Bangladesh. He said he visits VOV5’s website regularly and listens to our program on shortwave on 7220khz from 16:00 to 16:30 UTC. Saif Khan said he enjoyed the interesting information about Vietnam broadcasting on shortwave or well documented on the website. The Current Affairs is educative and useful, he said.
B: Welcome to VOV’s DX’ing community worldwide. Thank you for listening to VOV and corresponding with us. We’ll send you our program guides and frequency list. We hope to receive more detailed feedback from you soon.
A: VOV’s listenters told us they were impressed by Google Doodle featuring Chua Cau, Pagoda Bridge, in Vietnam’s world heritage site of Hoi An last week.
B: Shri Bhagwan Sharma wrote on our website: “Congratulation and best wishes to Vietnam for getting honoured as A Google Doodle featuring Vietnam’s ancient town of Hoi An. It is the first Vietnamese destination to be so honored by Google. The ancient town of Hoi An has made a huge leap on the “Top 15 Cities in the World” list of travel magazine Travel + Leisure, from its 8th position last year to the number one spot this year. It is the people choice destination and world travel attraction.”
 Chua Cau, Pagoda Bridge, in Hanoi was featured on Google. |
A: It’s interesting to see the Pagoda Bridge featured on Google’s search engine. The doodle coincided with the traditional Lantern Festival, held on the 14th day of each lunar month, in Hoi An. Thus the ancient Pagoda Bridge was depicted mysteriously under the moonlight surrounded by colorful lanterns on the ground and on the river underneath.
B: Colorful floating lanterns are also a distinct feature of Hoi An where lights are switched off during the lantern festival and the only light comes from the lanterns being floated on the river.
A: So far, Google has featured 5 Vietnamese symbols on its homepage: the Lunar New Year Festival, the Mid-autumn Festival, Teachers’ Day, National Day and cultural beauties.
 Google Doodle on Lunar New Year's Eve 2013 |
B: Banh Chung, a square sticky rice cake wrapped in green leaves and stuffed with green beans and pork, was featured on Google Doodle, on Lunar New Year’s Eve in 2013. The image of a family gathering to wrap and cook Banh Chung is a familiar sight of Tet, the most important and biggest holiday in Vietnam.
A: In 2017, on the occasion of Vietnam’s National Day on September 2, Google featured the image of Khue Van Cac, the pavilion of the Constellation of Literature located inside the Temple of Literature, Vietnam’s first national university.
 The image of a Vietnamese woman in a white Ao Dai, surrounded by a lotus flower depicted on Google. |
B: Last year, Google carried the image of a woman in a white Ao Dai with a pink lotus, Vietnam’s national flower, on its homepage. The Ao dai is a Vietnamese national costumes worn by both sexes but now most commonly worn by women.
A: Last year, Google also introduced the Hung Kings Temple Festival, an official celebration of Vietnamese people, as a special event on its homepage, with the image of a lion dance. Vietnamese celebrate the commemoration day of the Hung Kings, the nation's mythical founders, on the 10th of the third lunar month every year.
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Google honors the Hung Kings Temple Festival with the image of a lion dance.
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B: On the day, people flock to the Hung Kings Temple on Nghia Linh Mountain in Phu Tho province to offer incense to the mythical founders of Vietnam on their death anniversary. The worship of Hung Kings in Phu Tho province was inscribed in 2012 by UNESCO on the Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
A: Indian listeners thanked VOV for featuring Indian poet, Rabindranath Tagore. It’s a good tribute to Tagore, a man of many talents, in a refreshed presentation. The first Indian to win a Nobel Prize for literature, Tagore wrote and composed a wide array of songs, including India’s national anthem. He was a pedagogue who established a university that challenged the conventional form of education, and also a painter, whose style played an important role in modernising Bengali art.
B: Elliott Baim told us that he has several hundreds old Vietnamese stamps. He found a story on VOV about a stamp market in Hanoi. Elliott will be in Hanoi next January. He asked us ì we have any dealers who can buy them?
 People gather at Trieu Viet Vuong stamp market to share their passion. |
A: Well, we don’t know any stamp dealer. We recommend you visit the stamp market when you are in Hanoi. It’s a good chance to discuss with people of the same hobby. The initiator of the stamp market is Mr. Pham Hao, a famous stamp collector in Hanoi. At first, some collectors gathered for talks and show their stamps, then collectors from other parts of Vietnam came there, forming a stamp market. The market opens at 9am every Sunday in front of house No 160, Trieu Viet Vuong Street. It now attracts even foreigners.
B: Last week’s stories about Vietnamese Day of War Martyrs and Invalids captured the attention of our listeners. Ali Sahardi of Bangladesh said top news is war invalids and martyrs observed nationwide. He got to know about Vietnam’s policies for national contributors. Mr. Bhaikan Hazarika of India told us: “I really appreciate your program. I listened to your “Weekend Music Session” on July 27th. Today you played some wonderful Vietnamese songs of war memorial. The “Unforgetable songs” you played was so sweet. I enjoyed them very much.”
A: We akcnowledge an email from Ms. Johnelle Roseanna Lakeland of the UK. She said: “Thank you ever so much for the bookmark you sent in the last letter. It's really pretty!” And she sent us another report for a program on May 30th on the frequency of 7315KHz. She rated SINPO was 45444 and noted stable signal throughout the program.
B: Dillipkumar Sarkar of India sent us a brief audio-file of our radio program that he listened to on July 20 on the requency of 7220 kHz. He rated SINPO at 44333 on a Tecsun PL-660 receiver.
A: Michael Bass listened to our program on the website vovworld.vn. He wanted to know how he gets our QSL cards? We issue QSL cards for shortwave listeners. Please send us your DX’ing reports with information of the date, time, frequency, and the program content you listened to. We’ll send you our program guide and latest frequency list to tune in to our channel. Our postal address is VOVWorld, 45 Ba Trieu street, Hanoi, Vietnam. Our email address is englishsection@vov.org.vn.