Et tu, ca tru?

Quan ho and ca tru, priceless jewels in Vietnam’s musical heritage, have achieved UNESCO recognition, but can they survive indifference and the onslaught of pop culture and commercialization?

Singers in the northern province of Bac Ninh perform quan हो

Vietnam’s rich musical heritage has survived decades of war and its deprivations that robbed the nation of resources could have been dedicated to cultural preservation.
Ironically, it is peace-time prosperity ushered in by the market-based economy that is apparently pushing some of the most precious traditional music forms to extinction.
On September 30, UNESCO recognized the 800-year-old quan ho folk music as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Mankind, and followed it up the next day by giving the same recognition to the even older ca tru.
It was the culmination of a ten-year campaign, spearheaded by Professor Tran Van Khe, that united Vietnamese and foreign scholars and received enthusiastic government backing.
The newfound status brings to four the number of Vietnamese members of the exclusive club, the earlier two being the royal court music of Hue and the gong culture of the Central Highlands.
While the UNESCO recognition will direct some attention and resources to preserving these art forms, it is their popular acceptance and reintegration into daily life, especially in the rural areas where they originated, that hold the key, some scholars say.
Hanoi University lecturer Nguyen Hung Vi has said that quan ho’s simplistic nature improves its survival in the current, but watching doyens of this art perform in Bac Ninh Province underlines that its rendition takes years and years of practice.
It is said that in the old days village elders would select two pairs of matching voices among four to eight year old children and, hold a ceremony to get their parents’ permission for them to sing together. The pairs would then sing traditional songs in perfect harmony and be prepared to participate in contests between villages. Many songs were practiced in secret for the contests to prevent opponents from preparing strong repartees. The contests would sometimes last two or three days, until one of the pairs failed to respond to the other’s poser.
Nowadays, most Vietnamese have never seen a traditional performance of quan ho, which is said to date back to the 13th century.
Today, only five of the six singers, honored by the government in 1993 as torchbearers for quan ho, are still alive.
It takes a quan ho artist decades, even a lifetime, to master the sophisticated antiphonal singing, yet even the best of the best can barely make a living from it.
Even in Bac Ninh Province, the cradle of quan ho, appropriate venues are hard to come by as factories replace the paddy fields and bamboo groves that are the art’s quintessential stage and backdrop.
Three years ago there were still 49 villages where quan ho was performed, but many of these have since disappeared, as has a cappella singing, lost in a web of microphones, amplifiers and loudspeakers.
Today’s quan ho performers must oblige thousands of people in well-lit auditoriums and modern theaters in order to make a living, and even the tunes and notes of some of the oldest songs have been changed over the years.
Dr. Nguyen Chi Ben, head of the Vietnam Institute of Culture and the Arts, laments the sorry situation.
He thinks reviving the contests between the villages might be a good way to produce good singers and gain a wider audience for quan ho.
However, outward migration from villages to cities by young people looking for jobs, and the popularity of pop, rock and other Western music that has become mainstream music in the country makes this an uphill task.
Geisha music?
Ca tru used to be mainstream entertainment in the north for centuries before fading into obscurity in the mid 1940s.
It originated in the northern delta in the 11th century and enjoyed great popularity from the 15th century until French colonization in the 1800s. By then, ca tru had degenerated into a type of chamber music for the wealthy.
Based on poetry, true ca tru involves at least two male musicians playing the trong chau (a special drum) and dan day (a long-necked lute with three strings), and a female vocalist who also beats a bamboo phach with two wooden sticks.
The singing, chanting and reciting of the lyrics, many of which were written by famous poets of the past, are stylistic in the extreme.
The bell tolled for ca tru in the 1940s, when it was criticized as being a form of geisha entertainment.
Authentic ca tru performances in Ho Chi Minh City or Hanoi are few and far between in the 21st century, even on television or radio, though there are clubs trying to revive it.
In Hanoi, the Ca tru Club meets on the last Sunday of the month at Bich Cau Dao Quan Temple near the Temple of Literature.
Another started up in August 2006 and is simply called “Thang Long – Hanoi.” The club in Alley 73 off Giang Van Minh Street is open every Saturday night and attracts musicologists from the US, Britain, Germany and Japan.
“Ca tru va Hat Tho” in Tran Te Xuong Street, Phu Nhuan District is the only such club in HCMC। It is struggling to draw young people as they find it hard to appreciate the melodies and the meanings behind the lyrics.

Source: TN, Agencies

Beyond the sorrows of war

For Vinh Quyen and Edward O’Connell, there is no such thing as a language barrier.

Foreigners at a bookstore in downtown Ho Chi Minh City
They did not exactly make this claim।

But what they have done – the former has written a novel about postwar life in southern Vietnam in English and the latter has managed to find an American publisher willing to print a work by an unknown writer from a foreign country – has shown language barriers their proper place.
The making of Hue writer Vinh Quyen’s first English novel, “Debris of Debris,” had much to do with what is more common than language differences: the empathy of human hearts.
It started with an acknowledgement in David Bergen’s “The Time in Between.“ The Canadian writer thanked Quyen for the conversations and late night company that helped him create a moving story of a Vietnam War veteran’s troubled journey back to the former battlefields.
Bergen could not have known that his expression of gratitude would trigger a daring act. Bergen’s novel, with images of locals so familiar to Quyen, made the bureau chief of Lao Dong newspaper in central Vietnam ask a question that had never before crossed his mind.
“Why don’t I directly tell the story of my people to foreign readers, and to the whole world?”
From what he’d heard, no Vietnamese writer living in Vietnam had ever written a novel in English. Yet, to be the first to do so was not important. Quyen didn’t aim to impress. He was motivated by whatever it is that sparks all acts of creativity.
It was exciting, he said. So at a “ripe” time, he started “Debris of Debris,” with “self-taught English.“ The work wasn’t easy. The writer, whose forte is anything but English, soldiered on with the help of a friend, Tran Thanh Lieng, who is fluent in the language.
But Quyen completed it at last. And the novel, which Quyen says delves into everything that isn’t touched by Bao Ninh’s famous novel “The Sorrow of War,” found its first foreign reader.
“An English novel right in Vietnam? This interested me, to be exact, made me curious,” said Edward O’Connell, an American education investor in Vietnam who accidentally met Quyen while drinking beer with their common friend, Tran Thanh Lieng, on one fine day by the Han River in Da Nang last year.
Afterwards, things happened as they should happen.
O’Connell struck a friendship with Quyen, read his novel once, re-read it a few times to dig for the meanings hidden between the imperfect English lines. He found enough to recommend the story to the College of St. Benedict and St. John’s University in the US.
The schools added “Debris of Debris” to their reference book systems and introduced it to
Graywolf Press, a non-profit publisher. Graywolf Press took it further and the novel will hit the bookshelves later this year.
“American readers have very few books or other information about postwar Vietnam to read, to understand,” said O’Connell, who understood the American publishing world well enough to know that ”Debris of Debris” would have no chance with a commercial publisher.
As far as the novel’s literary worth was concerned, he didn’t feel qualified to comment. Yet, its cultural value was so obvious once he read it that he tried to have it published only because he wanted other Americans to have a chance to read it too.
The story, about southerners who chose to stay in Vietnam after 1975 and struggled to integrate into a new social order, would help Americans understand Vietnamese better, he said.
O’Connell is not worried this understanding could be hampered by the difficulty in reading an English novel written by one whose first language isn’t English. For him, the more slowly “Debris of Debris” is read, the deeper the understanding.
That said, it is fortunate that there are not-for-profit publishers like Graywolf Press, which, is supported by the academic and literary communities, can afford to publish the likes of “Debris of Debris.”
Graywolf Press saw the novel’s cultural significance as clearly as O’Connell did and has decided to keep as much of Quyen’s original English as possible.
For his part, Quyen said he has also aimed for better understanding – not just between Vietnamese and Americans, but among Vietnamese as well.
He said more than 30 million southerners who stayed in their homeland after the war aren’t sufficiently represented in contemporary local literature.
Bao Ninh has dealt with “The Sorrow of War,” but the toil and tears of healing that sorrow, especially in the south, is another story.
“Debris of Debris” sifts through the rubble to deliver that narrative.
Reported by Ngo Thi Kim Cuc (With additional reporting by Thuy Linh in Hanoi)

AirAsia links Jakarta with Ho Chi Minh City

Budget carrier AirAsia has officially opened its latest route between Ho Chi Minh City and Indonesian capital Jakarta, a month after it had a soft opening।

Dharmadi, PT Indonesia AirAsia president director said the carrier’s fifth route will operate four weekly flights that would bring more opportunities for travel between the two destinations and foster new economic tie ups between Vietnam and Indonesia.

The director told Thanh Nien the carrier’s occupancy was about 65 percent in a month of soft opening and expected it to reach 75 percent in a year. When this happened, the carrier plans to open a new route between HCMC and Bali, he added.
The carrier has no plans for other routes between cities in Vietnam and Indonesia. The low cost carrier operates daily routes from HCMC and Hanoi to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and Bangkok, Thailand.
Last year, 30,000 Vietnamese visitors traveled to Indonesia and 22,000 Indonesia tourists arrived in Vietnam, according to the tourism ministries of both nations।

Reported by Minh Quang

Hospitals overcrowded by hand-foot-mouth, respiratory disease

Hand, foot and mouth has been more severe this year and is flooding hospitals with children, as are respiratory diseases, doctors in Ho Chi Minh City said.

The Respiratory Department at Children’s Hospital No.1 is so crowded that mothers have to care for their children in the corridor.

Nearly half of inpatient children at Children’s Hospital No.’s Infection – Mental Health Department on Friday were hospitalized with hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD) and three of them were assisted with respirators.

Truong Huu Khanh, head of the department, said the department emergency room had received several HFMD children in severe condition for several days straight.

“The children have complications with their nervous, circulatory and respiratory systems, including breathing difficulties and high blood pressure.”

HFMD patients also top the list at the Children’s Hospital No.2, with 55 admitted Friday, including seven in the emergency room.

Tran Thi Thuy, deputy head of the Infection Department at the hospital, said late September and early October was the prime time for HFMD.

Doctors said more children were catching the disease and developing more critical conditions this year than in previous years.

The 80-bed Children’s Hospital 1 was keeping more than 200 respiratory inpatients on Friday.

Tran Anh Tuan, head of the hospital Respiratory Department, said changes in the climate have caused many children under 1 year old to catch pneumonia and bronchitis.

Doctors have also warned about the high threat of dengue fever in children this month.

Le Bich Lien, head of the Dengue Fever Department at Children’s Hospital No.1, said the rate of dengue infections had lost steam this week but could return even stronger, depending on the weather and the effectiveness of prevention measures.

There have been years in which the disease has peaked in November and December, Lien said.

Reported by Thanh Tung

US, Vietnam face Agent Orange legacy

Mai Khai contentedly grows his potatoes and melons smack up against an old brick wall surrounding a former US airbase in Vietnam which experts say remains highly contaminated.

An official from Agent Orange victims' Association of Da Nang looks over a wall surrounding an area believed to be contaminated with dioxin inside a former US airbase.

Almost four decades after American troops stopped wartime spraying of Agent Orange and other herbicides containing potentially cancer-causing dioxin, United States and Vietnamese officials are cooperating on preliminary clean-up measures at the Da Nang airport.

Full-scale decontamination has yet to begin, though, and could take years.

While the preparatory work continues, Khai faces only a limited danger from his vegetables, foreign and Vietnamese experts said.

But residents near the airbase do face a more general dioxin risk, they said. A Canadian study found elevated dioxin levels in people living near the north and east of the airbase although neither foreign nor Vietnamese experts could say exactly how many people are at risk from the contamination.

“We have globally, collectively, agreed that this stuff is bad,” said Koos Neefjes, an adviser on dioxin to the United Nations in Hanoi.

Khai, 76, is not worried.

“There’s no pollution here,” says the longtime area resident. “I’m still alive.”

During the Vietnam War, US forces stored Agent Orange at Da Nang and other bases where it was loaded onto airplanes for defoliation missions.

Jungle areas that were sprayed do not have high levels of dioxin today, said Thomas Boivin, president of Canadian environmental specialists Hatfield Consultants, who have spent years studying dioxin contamination in Vietnam.

But the US and Vietnamese officials have identified the old US bases in Da Nang, Bien Hoa – near the former Saigon – and Phu Cat as significant “hotspots” where spillage, washing of aircraft and loading of the herbicides contributed to contamination.

At Da Nang airport now, dioxin levels are still 300-400 times higher than internationally accepted levels, Boivin said.

Almost two years ago Vietnamese officials, assisted by the US, installed a concrete cap over the former Agent Orange mixing and loading area and improved drainage and filtering of lake sediment inside the Da Nang airbase.

Authorities also banned people from eating fish or other foods from lakes on the property.

These temporary measures have prevented contamination from spreading, officials from both sides said.

The affected area is under Vietnamese military control and is separate from the passenger terminal in Vietnam’s fourth-largest city, which authorities want to promote as a tourist destination.

Without further action, contaminated material at the hotspots will continue to be dispersed through soil particles as well as water currents, wildlife and air, Neefjes told annual US-Vietnamese Agent Orange talks this month.

Dioxin can be passed through the food chain via fish or fowl.

Other donors are also assisting but at Vietnam’s request, the US is focusing its help on the Da Nang site.

US officials told AFP that “such a complex and politically sensitive issue” has required consensus both within the US government as well as between the US and Vietnam.

The US has “certainly worked as fast as we possibly can to get moving on this project,” US ambassador Michael Michalak said after a senior Vietnamese official complained at the recent talks that US funds had not been disbursed quickly enough.

Bids have been received and a contract will soon be announced for an environmental assessment and preparatory work at the Da Nang site, Michalak said. In June both sides began testing “bioremediation”, the use of biological organisms to destroy dioxin.

The cleanup will require moving tainted soil to a landfill before it can be decontaminated either by biotechnology or another method, said Lai Minh Hien, director of Vietnam’s Office 33 which deals with Agent Orange.

Decontaminating all three former bases could cost about US$60 million or more, Hien told AFP in an interview, calling for additional funding from the United States.

“We want the US to put in more effort,” Hien said.

Michalak countered that it is too early to say what a cleanup would ultimately cost.

Le Ke Son, co-chairman of the bilateral talks, agreed. He said the scope of contamination in Bien Hoa, for example, is greater than initially thought and requires a new study.

The Vietnam War ended in 1975 but the US and Vietnam did not normalize relations until 1995. Twelve years later, with US approval of $3 million for dioxin mitigation and health activities in Vietnam, American policy changed to support a cleanup, US officials said.

President Barack Obama this year signed a bill doubling that assistance to $6 million.

Vietnam blames dioxin for a spate of birth deformities but the US says there has been no internationally-accepted scientific study establishing a link between Agent Orange and Vietnam’s disabled and deformed.

Hoang Thi The, 71, a widow who lives near Da Nang airport, said she knows nothing about the $6 million but would like US funding for her disabled children.

She kept one hand, as if protectively, on the damaged wheelchair of her son, Tran Duc Nghia, 35, who sat with his mouth open and eyes vacant. His sister Tran Thi Ty Nga, 31, held onto a walker, sweat forming on her neck.

The said doctors told her the children, normal in their earliest years, became affected by Agent Orange.

“I was told that if we lived near the places where Agent Orange was stored or was sprayed, we may be hit by these toxins,” said The, who remembered the sound of planes taking off during the war.

“But I did not know that they carried Agent Orange.”

Source: AFP

Requiem for the unborn

Thousands of couples pray for the souls of their aborted fetuses.

A young woman at Tu Du maternity hospital’s family planning department in Ho Chi Minh City

Heads bowed, the young couple intoned their prayers at a pagoda in Ho Chi Minh City.

She burst into tears and soon after, he was crying as well.

They were crying for the souls of the dead, not of their parents, relatives or friends, but for fetuses they had aborted.

The young couple, who had had two abortions, were not alone in their grief, guilt and atonement.

Several thousand couples and individuals gathered at the Tu Quang Pagoda in Binh Chanh District for the three-day grand requiem last week, and the tears flowed copiously.

“I was not expecting it (the grand requiem) would attract that many people,” the pagoda’s Head Monk Thich Giac Thien told Thanh Nien Weekly.

“The chanting ceremony was originally organized on the request of a few people who wanted to express remorse for their aborted fetuses,” he said.

But the news spread and people flocked in droves to the three-day event which ended last Saturday.

Thousands of couples came to chant in atonement every day. At least 4,000 people came on the last day.

All the attendants were required to declare their names and their abortion cases in a fact sheet given by the pagoda, Monk Thien said. They had to tell the truth about the number of abortions they’d had so that the souls of the fetuses could rest in peace, he added.

Staggering numbers

One woman in her sixties from the northern port city of Hai Phong reported she’d had 20 abortions, topping the list.

The majority of women had aborted between four to 10 times, Nun Thanh Lai told Thanh Nien Weekly.

The average age of women attending the atonement ceremony ranged between 30 and 45, but there were many younger ones as well.

A 23-year-old woman from the Mekong Delta province of Tra Vinh, identified only as N.T.N.N, had already had four abortions.

Also 23, P.T.M.T could not even remember how many times she’d gone through the process. “Many times” was what she wrote in the fact sheet.

But T. could name her partner on the fact sheet. H.K.D from HCMC’s District 4, meanwhile, wrote “anonymous.”

Abortion is legal in Vietnam and both public and private clinics are allowed to perform the practice. The country was ranked as having the world's highest abortion rate in a 1999 report by the US-based Guttmacher Institute.

‘I killed my baby’

For 29-year-old P.T.T.N in HCMC, who had three abortions, the first was a traumatic experience.

Getting married and pregnant when she was 22, N. said had no choice but to abort the fetus since she was still studying in college then.

“I was too scared and the [first] abortion haunted me a lot,” N. told Thanh Nien Weekly. “I had a feeling that I had killed my baby and that would make me infertile for the rest of my life.”

N. now has one child.

T.T.N.T, 33, also in HCMC, had her first abortion 10 years ago when she was already married.

“That was my last resort. We were too poor at that time to give birth to the baby,” T. said.

Since then, T. has aborted a total of six times. She has two children.

But many other women who came to grand requiem were not as fortunate as N. or T. They have been suffering the consequences of unsafe abortions – serious injuries, infertility, or permanent or temporary disabilities.

Growing problem

There are no reliable statistics for abortions performed by both public and private health sectors in Vietnam, said Nguyen Bich Hang, the Vietnam office head of Marie Stopes International, a UK-based non-governmental organization providing sexual and reproductive healthcare services.

“The government’s annual statistics on abortion cases tend to reflect those performed at the public health sector only, leaving those provided by a majority of 31,000 private clinics in Vietnam unknown and not reported,” Hang said.

Monk Thien said that major hospitals in HCMC were also aware of the ceremony. “They told me that abortion cases have continued to increase over the past years.”

Tu Du and Hung Vuong hospitals, the two largest maternity facilities in the city, confirmed what Monk Thien said.

During the first nine months of this year, Hung Vuong Hospital recorded around 18,600 cases. “A majority of women undergoing abortion were aged between 20 to 24,” said Tran Son Thach, the hospital director.

Tu Du Hospital said nearly 21,000 abortions had been performed as of September.

“Girls aged under 19 account for 10 percent, from just 5 to 7 percent during the past years,” said Dr. Duong Phuong Mai, head of the hospital’s family planning department.

Hang from Marie Stopes International Vietnam blamed the high rates of abortion in Vietnam on poor counseling on the potential health consequences of unwanted pregnancies and unwanted birth and the wide and easy availability of abortion services

“The lack of proper follow-up and lack of skill and motivation among the majority of family planning service providers often discourage women, especially young ones, from asking for information and coming back for repeated use of contraceptives.”

The role of the mass media also leaves considerable room for improvement, Hang said.

When providing information on sensitive issues like safe sex and contraceptive use, the stress should be on providing accurate facts. Most of educational activities are perceived as propaganda rather than “factual and objective,” Hang said.

Why and why not?

The pagoda’s fact sheet did not require the attendees to say why they’d chosen to have the abortions.

But in conversations with Thanh Nien Weekly, many women and couples were hesitant about going into why they’d had so many abortions.

Some said they were too young, others that they were still studying. Others were not married, or their boyfriends had dumped them on learning they were pregnant. Some were rape victims.

Poverty was cited by many women as a reason. Female employees from rural areas living and working away from their families at industrial zones became pregnant after cohabiting with fellow workers but were too poor to keep the baby.

Some believed they were engaging in “safe sex” without using contraceptives of any sort, for instance by having the male partner “ejaculate outside.”

No one at the event mentioned that they’d decided to have an abortion based on the sex of the fetus, but many studies and reports have documented that the preference for a son has motivated the abortion of female fetuses.

Reported by An Dien (With additional reporting by Thanh Tung)

Tropical storm Parma makes landfall in Philippines for 3rd time

Tropical Storm Parma made landfall for the third time in Luzon in the northern Philippines, after killing 20 people and ruining rice crops when it first crossed the island five days ago.

People struggle through a flooded street in the town of Santa Cruz, south of Manila.

Parma crossed the northeast coast of northern Luzon after 2 a.m. Thursday, according to the US Navy Joint Typhoon Warning Center. It was 53 kilometers (33 miles) northwest of Palanan on the coast of Luzon at 8 a.m. this morning, the center said. Parma is forecast to cross Luzon and move over the South China Sea by about 8 a.m. tomorrow.
The storm passed over Luzon after making landfall in the northeast on Oct. 3 as a typhoon, bringing more rain to areas drenched by Tropical Storm Ketsana, which hit the island a week earlier. Parma moved out over the South China Sea before turning a circle and crossing Luzon for a second time Wednesday.
The storm’s winds fell to 56 kilometers per hour from 65 kph before landfall. Parma’s winds were at about 148 kph when it first hit Luzon.
Parma caused landslides and flooding, which destroyed rice and other crops in the Philippines’ biggest rice-producing region, prompting the government to say it may import more than planned next year. The nation is the world’s biggest importer of the grain.
The Philippines is still reeling from Tropical Storm Ketsana, which dropped the most rain in more than 40 years on Manila and surrounding provinces on Sept. 26, resulting in flooding that destroyed homes, roads and businesses and killed 298, mostly by drowning.
At least 39 remain missing and about 317,000 still in evacuation centers, according to the National Disaster Coordinating Council.
Some areas remain flooded and a “state of national calamity” is still in effect, allowing the national government to fix prices of basic goods and local governments to tap emergency funds.
Ketsana hit Vietnam on Sept. 29, leaving 163 people and 11 missing as of 9 p.m. Oct. 5, the Vietnamese government said on its website Thursday.

Source: Bloomberg

Jetstar mulls Southeast Asia base for Europe flights

Jetstar, Qantas Airways Ltd.’s low- cost unit, may open a base in Southeast Asia to support the introduction of European flights, likely challenging local carriers on profitable long-haul routes.

Europe is “within the spectrum of possibilities” over the next few years, Chief Executive Officer Bruce Buchanan said in an interview Thursday. Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia are possible locations for the long-haul hub, he added.
The Australian carrier plans to start flights to Europe as economic growth in the Asia-Pacific region spurs international travel. The move may add to competition for Thai Airways International Pcl and for Singapore Airlines Ltd., which flew 27 percent of passengers on European routes last year.
Melbourne-based Jetstar may select Singapore for maintenance and the administration of its European flights because it owns stakes in two carriers already based in the city-state, Jetstar Asia and Valuair, Buchanan said. Bangkok has the advantage of being closer to Europe, while costs in Malaysia are lower, he added.
Jetstar is doubling the size of its Airbus SAS A330 fleet to 12 planes to support the push into long-haul services. The carrier has also added operations in Vietnam and New Zealand.
“Our prime focus is always going to be Asia as our business is about creating critical mass,” Buchanan, 36, said.
Jetstar profit
Shares of Qantas, Australia’s largest airline, rose 2.4 percent to A$2.97 at the close of trading in Sydney. The stock has gained 13 percent this year compared with the benchmark S&P/ASX 200 index’s 28 percent rise.
Jetstar’s profit rose 4.9 percent in the year ended June as it added routes and won customers. Earnings at the Qantas-brand carrier dropped more than 99 percent on a slump in demand for business and first-class travel. The low-cost unit expects sales of A$2.6 billion ($2.4 billion) this fiscal year.
Buchanan took control of five-year-old Jetstar 12 months ago, after founder Alan Joyce became chief executive officer of parent Qantas. The unit offers a “no-frills” economy-class- only service, where customers have to pay extra for checked baggage and meals. The carrier has business class on overseas services including Malaysia, Hawaii and Japan.
New Zealand
Jetstar’s expansion overseas has been hit by late arrivals and poor customer service in New Zealand, where it began domestic flights in June. The airline subsequently took out full-page newspaper advertisements apologizing to customers, and it now plans to add more services.
“The lesson in New Zealand is the degree of responsiveness,” Buchanan said. “Customers can be pretty understanding when you say, ‘It’s my fault.’”
The 27 percent-owned Jetstar Pacific in Vietnam is also considering expansion, including adding to its network of seven domestic destinations and possibly opening an international hub in Ho Chi Minh City, Buchanan said. The carrier became profitable in July after boosting market share to 23 percent from 14 percent and driving down operating costs by 29 percent.
Within Australia, Buchanan said keeping Jetstar’s operations as a single-class product has helped Qantas avoid following British Airways Plc, Air France-KLM and Delta Air Lines Inc. in losing money while building a discount carrier alongside a full-service brand. The split may also help Jetstar avoid competing with its parent as the economy improves and business travel rebounds, he said.
“Businesspeople are after a premium product, which we are not in the business of providing,” Buchanan said. “That is Qantas territory.”
Source: Bloomberg

HSBC raises Asia 2010 growth forecast to 7.6 pct

HSBC Holdings Plc raised its 2010 economic growth forecast for Asia excluding Japan to 7।6 percent from 6.9 percent, led by faster expansions in China, South Korea and Singapore.

“Growth has roared back in Asia, with domestic demand firing on all cylinders and exports accelerating too,” the bank wrote in a report published Tuesday.
China will expand 9.5 percent, faster than an earlier forecast for 8.5 percent, HSBC said. Hong Kong’s growth estimate was raised to 3.8 percent from 2.4 percent. South Korea will grow 4.6 percent, versus the 3.6 percent estimated previously, and Singapore will expand 6.5 percent compared with 5.3 percent.
“Besides continued strength in consumption and investment, we expect exports to rebound over the coming quarter, driven by restocking in the West and inter-emerging markets trade,” HSBC economists Robert Prior-Wandesforde and Frederic Neumann wrote in the report.
They said the region’s central banks will begin to raise interest rates. Australia will increase its key rate later this year, and Korea and Taiwan will move in the first quarter of 2010. China, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Thailand will following in the second quarter, the report said.
Source: Bloomberg

Gender-bending the rules

Gay beauty pageants are gaining momentum without official recognition.

Pre-game jitters: Contestants prepare backstage at Miss Angel, one of many gay beauty contests becoming increasingly popular in Ho Chi Minh City. Though not officially licensed by local authorities, such events have heightened the sense of dignity in the gay community, organizers say.

Like many young people, Lam Thi wanted nothing more than to walk the stage at a glamorous beauty contest.
But the options are limited for gay men such as Thi, who identifies herself as a woman.
So when Thi heard about Miss Angel, a beauty contest strictly for gay men, she did everything she could to compete, and win.
But it was more than self-interest that inspired her, she also wanted to bring greater acceptance to the gay community.
“Through such contests, I hope society will learn to keep an open mind about gays,” she said.
But Miss Angel and other beauty pageants for homosexuals are not licensed by Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism’s Department of Performing Arts, which has to approve all live events in Vietnam.
Current regulations state that transsexuals cannot take part in beauty contests. The law, however, doesn’t mention anything about pageants for homosexuals. But in Vietnam, it is commonly accepted that if something is not mentioned in the law, it is forbidden.
Still, several gay pageants every year are attracting scores of contestants who say they just want to be considered normal. Though prize winnings are usually low, around US$100-300, most gay beauty-queen hopefuls spend an average of $600 getting dolled up for the events, according to Minh Quan, director of Miss Angel.
‘Just for fun’
Miss Angel was first held in 2005 by The Gioi Thu Ba (The Third World) Ltd. and gay club Bau Troi Xanh (Blue Sky). Contestants, aged 16-24, compete in three rounds including a female costume competition and a session in which they must demonstrate their knowledge about HIV/AIDS and safe sex.
The judges panel consist of make-up artists, psychologists and members of the Ho Chi Minh City’s AIDS Prevention Committee.
Minh Quan, 29-year-old director of The Gioi Thu Ba Ltd. and moderator of thegioithu3. com, which boasts the largest number of members of all gay-themed websites in Vietnam, said he held Vietnam’s first gay beauty contest at a hotel in HCMC “just for fun.”
Quan, who has come out publicly about his homosexuality, said a group of about 20 gay men competed in the first competition.
But as support grew through his website, which had 8,000 members by 2006, he decided to organize larger, more highly-publicized competitions.
“Later contests drew a lot of media attention with headlines like ‘Homosexuals vie for beauty queen title,’” Quan said.
In vogue: A contestant strikes a pose at Miss Angel, a beauty pageant for gay men held in Ho Chi Minh City last June
“We received a lot of support from the public in the beginning. Many thought it was just a normal event. But, of course, there was strong opposition as well.”
This year’s pageant was held in June and attracted hundreds of contestants from HCMC and other provinces.
An audience member who wished to remain anonymous said most of the contestants were transvestites but that some transsexuals had also participated in the event.
But it was 20-year-old Thi’s dream that came true at the 4th Miss Angel.
In an interview with Thanh Nien after being crowned the queen of the contest, the native of the southwestern province of Tay Ninh, said she had had breast augmentation surgery and would undergo more complicated sex-related surgery in the near future.
Like beauty queens in any other pageant, the 4th Miss Angel said she would use her position to carry out charity work.
“I will launch an awareness campaign calling on homosexuals to have safe sex to prevent AIDS.”
Dignity
The first Prince Style Contest for lesbians was held in August by thegioikhac.com, becoming the first public contest for lesbians in HCMC, open to anyone from southern provinces aged 17-28.
The moderator of “thegioikhac” (another world), who goes by the name Ivy, said Vietnamese lesbians tended to hide their sexuality more than gay men in Vietnam.
Organizers were worried that turnout would be low, said Ivy. But more than enough contestants competed, with twelve making it to the final round.
Ivy said that the best thing about Prince Style and other similar pageants, such as Men Style and Mr. Ikon – held by gay youth website taoxanh.net – was that they brought a sense of pride and dignity to the lesbian community, with contestants unafraid to express themselves and showcase their unique features.
Most of the Prince Style contestants said they took part in the event as a way to support the gay community, in which they felt comfortable to be themselves and live their lives however they chose.
Many said they often had to hide their true selves in their everyday lives for fear of retribution from their friends, family, coworkers and society in general.
Opening up
After the first contest for lesbians made its debut in HCMC, Dang Linh, moderator of lesbian website bangaivn.net, said she hoped to organize contests in the north next year.
Minh Quan is now also training contestants for the next Miss Angel Contest as well as Prince Style. Quan said his biggest wish was that gay pageants would one day be officially licensed so they can expand and attract larger sponsorships.
Quan, who added that he also wanted to organize a contest for transsexuals next year, said that he longed for the day that the gay community would have the full acceptance of the rest of Vietnamese society.
Reported by Pham Thu Nga

Requiem for the unborn

Thousands of couples pray for the souls of their aborted fetuses।

A young woman at Tu Du maternity hospital’s family planning department in Ho Chi Minh City
Thousands of couples pray for the souls of their aborted fetuses।

Heads bowed, the young couple intoned their prayers at a pagoda in Ho Chi Minh City.
She burst into tears and soon after, he was crying as well।

They were crying for the souls of the dead, not of their parents, relatives or friends, but for fetuses they had aborted।

The young couple, who had had two abortions, were not alone in their grief, guilt and atonement.
Several thousand couples and individuals gathered at the Tu Quang Pagoda in Binh Chanh District for the three-day grand requiem last week, and the tears flowed copiously।

“I was not expecting it (the grand requiem) would attract that many people,” the pagoda’s Head Monk Thich Giac Thien told Thanh Nien Weekly.
“The chanting ceremony was originally organized on the request of a few people who wanted to express remorse for their aborted fetuses,” he said.
But the news spread and people flocked in droves to the three-day event which ended last Saturday.
Thousands of couples came to chant in atonement every day. At least 4,000 people came on the last day.
All the attendants were required to declare their names and their abortion cases in a fact sheet given by the pagoda, Monk Thien said. They had to tell the truth about the number of abortions they’d had so that the souls of the fetuses could rest in peace, he added.
Staggering numbers
One woman in her sixties from the northern port city of Hai Phong reported she’d had 20 abortions, topping the list.
The majority of women had aborted between four to 10 times, Nun Thanh Lai told Thanh Nien Weekly.
The average age of women attending the atonement ceremony ranged between 30 and 45, but there were many younger ones as well.
A 23-year-old woman from the Mekong Delta province of Tra Vinh, identified only as N.T.N.N, had already had four abortions.
Also 23, P.T.M.T could not even remember how many times she’d gone through the process. “Many times” was what she wrote in the fact sheet.
But T. could name her partner on the fact sheet. H.K.D from HCMC’s District 4, meanwhile, wrote “anonymous.”
Abortion is legal in Vietnam and both public and private clinics are allowed to perform the practice. The country was ranked as having the world's highest abortion rate in a 1999 report by the US-based Guttmacher Institute.
‘I killed my baby’
For 29-year-old P.T.T.N in HCMC, who had three abortions, the first was a traumatic experience.
Getting married and pregnant when she was 22, N. said had no choice but to abort the fetus since she was still studying in college then.
“I was too scared and the [first] abortion haunted me a lot,” N. told Thanh Nien Weekly. “I had a feeling that I had killed my baby and that would make me infertile for the rest of my life.”
N. now has one child.
T.T.N.T, 33, also in HCMC, had her first abortion 10 years ago when she was already married.
“That was my last resort. We were too poor at that time to give birth to the baby,” T. said.
Since then, T. has aborted a total of six times. She has two children.
But many other women who came to grand requiem were not as fortunate as N. or T. They have been suffering the consequences of unsafe abortions – serious injuries, infertility, or permanent or temporary disabilities.
Growing problem
There are no reliable statistics for abortions performed by both public and private health sectors in Vietnam, said Nguyen Bich Hang, the Vietnam office head of Marie Stopes International, a UK-based non-governmental organization providing sexual and reproductive healthcare services.
“The government’s annual statistics on abortion cases tend to reflect those performed at the public health sector only, leaving those provided by a majority of 31,000 private clinics in Vietnam unknown and not reported,” Hang said.
Monk Thien said that major hospitals in HCMC were also aware of the ceremony. “They told me that abortion cases have continued to increase over the past years.”
Tu Du and Hung Vuong hospitals, the two largest maternity facilities in the city, confirmed what Monk Thien said.
During the first nine months of this year, Hung Vuong Hospital recorded around 18,600 cases. “A majority of women undergoing abortion were aged between 20 to 24,” said Tran Son Thach, the hospital director.
Tu Du Hospital said nearly 21,000 abortions had been performed as of September.
“Girls aged under 19 account for 10 percent, from just 5 to 7 percent during the past years,” said Dr. Duong Phuong Mai, head of the hospital’s family planning department.
Hang from Marie Stopes International Vietnam blamed the high rates of abortion in Vietnam on poor counseling on the potential health consequences of unwanted pregnancies and unwanted birth and the wide and easy availability of abortion services
“The lack of proper follow-up and lack of skill and motivation among the majority of family planning service providers often discourage women, especially young ones, from asking for information and coming back for repeated use of contraceptives.”
The role of the mass media also leaves considerable room for improvement, Hang said.
When providing information on sensitive issues like safe sex and contraceptive use, the stress should be on providing accurate facts. Most of educational activities are perceived as propaganda rather than “factual and objective,” Hang said.
Why and why not?
The pagoda’s fact sheet did not require the attendees to say why they’d chosen to have the abortions.
But in conversations with Thanh Nien Weekly, many women and couples were hesitant about going into why they’d had so many abortions.
Some said they were too young, others that they were still studying. Others were not married, or their boyfriends had dumped them on learning they were pregnant. Some were rape victims.
Poverty was cited by many women as a reason. Female employees from rural areas living and working away from their families at industrial zones became pregnant after cohabiting with fellow workers but were too poor to keep the baby.
Some believed they were engaging in “safe sex” without using contraceptives of any sort, for instance by having the male partner “ejaculate outside.”
No one at the event mentioned that they’d decided to have an abortion based on the sex of the fetus, but many studies and reports have documented that the preference for a son has motivated the abortion of female fetuses.
Reported by An Dien (With additional reporting by Thanh Tung)

US, Vietnam face Agent Orange legacy

Mai Khai contentedly grows his potatoes and melons smack up against an old brick wall surrounding a former US airbase in Vietnam which experts say remains highly contaminated.

An official from Agent Orange victims' Association of Da Nang looks over a wall surrounding an area believed to be contaminated with dioxin inside a former US airbase।

Almost four decades after American troops stopped wartime spraying of Agent Orange and other herbicides containing potentially cancer-causing dioxin, United States and Vietnamese officials are cooperating on preliminary clean-up measures at the Da Nang airport.
Full-scale decontamination has yet to begin, though, and could take years.
While the preparatory work continues, Khai faces only a limited danger from his vegetables, foreign and Vietnamese experts said.
But residents near the airbase do face a more general dioxin risk, they said. A Canadian study found elevated dioxin levels in people living near the north and east of the airbase although neither foreign nor Vietnamese experts could say exactly how many people are at risk from the contamination.
“We have globally, collectively, agreed that this stuff is bad,” said Koos Neefjes, an adviser on dioxin to the United Nations in Hanoi.
Khai, 76, is not worried.
“There’s no pollution here,” says the longtime area resident. “I’m still alive.”
During the Vietnam War, US forces stored Agent Orange at Da Nang and other bases where it was loaded onto airplanes for defoliation missions.
Jungle areas that were sprayed do not have high levels of dioxin today, said Thomas Boivin, president of Canadian environmental specialists Hatfield Consultants, who have spent years studying dioxin contamination in Vietnam.
But the US and Vietnamese officials have identified the old US bases in Da Nang, Bien Hoa – near the former Saigon – and Phu Cat as significant “hotspots” where spillage, washing of aircraft and loading of the herbicides contributed to contamination.
At Da Nang airport now, dioxin levels are still 300-400 times higher than internationally accepted levels, Boivin said.
Almost two years ago Vietnamese officials, assisted by the US, installed a concrete cap over the former Agent Orange mixing and loading area and improved drainage and filtering of lake sediment inside the Da Nang airbase.
Authorities also banned people from eating fish or other foods from lakes on the property.
These temporary measures have prevented contamination from spreading, officials from both sides said.
The affected area is under Vietnamese military control and is separate from the passenger terminal in Vietnam’s fourth-largest city, which authorities want to promote as a tourist destination.
Without further action, contaminated material at the hotspots will continue to be dispersed through soil particles as well as water currents, wildlife and air, Neefjes told annual US-Vietnamese Agent Orange talks this month.
Dioxin can be passed through the food chain via fish or fowl.
Other donors are also assisting but at Vietnam’s request, the US is focusing its help on the Da Nang site.
US officials told AFP that “such a complex and politically sensitive issue” has required consensus both within the US government as well as between the US and Vietnam.
The US has “certainly worked as fast as we possibly can to get moving on this project,” US ambassador Michael Michalak said after a senior Vietnamese official complained at the recent talks that US funds had not been disbursed quickly enough.
Bids have been received and a contract will soon be announced for an environmental assessment and preparatory work at the Da Nang site, Michalak said. In June both sides began testing “bioremediation”, the use of biological organisms to destroy dioxin.
The cleanup will require moving tainted soil to a landfill before it can be decontaminated either by biotechnology or another method, said Lai Minh Hien, director of Vietnam’s Office 33 which deals with Agent Orange.
Decontaminating all three former bases could cost about US$60 million or more, Hien told AFP in an interview, calling for additional funding from the United States.
“We want the US to put in more effort,” Hien said.
Michalak countered that it is too early to say what a cleanup would ultimately cost.
Le Ke Son, co-chairman of the bilateral talks, agreed. He said the scope of contamination in Bien Hoa, for example, is greater than initially thought and requires a new study.
The Vietnam War ended in 1975 but the US and Vietnam did not normalize relations until 1995. Twelve years later, with US approval of $3 million for dioxin mitigation and health activities in Vietnam, American policy changed to support a cleanup, US officials said.
President Barack Obama this year signed a bill doubling that assistance to $6 million.
Vietnam blames dioxin for a spate of birth deformities but the US says there has been no internationally-accepted scientific study establishing a link between Agent Orange and Vietnam’s disabled and deformed.
Hoang Thi The, 71, a widow who lives near Da Nang airport, said she knows nothing about the $6 million but would like US funding for her disabled children.
She kept one hand, as if protectively, on the damaged wheelchair of her son, Tran Duc Nghia, 35, who sat with his mouth open and eyes vacant. His sister Tran Thi Ty Nga, 31, held onto a walker, sweat forming on her neck.
The said doctors told her the children, normal in their earliest years, became affected by Agent Orange.
“I was told that if we lived near the places where Agent Orange was stored or was sprayed, we may be hit by these toxins,” said The, who remembered the sound of planes taking off during the war.
“But I did not know that they carried Agent Orange.”
Source: AFP

Convenience store picnic

One evening this past spring, I stopped by one of the relatively new convenience stores located in downtown Ho Chi Minh City।




A boy has dinner at a fast food
store in downtown Ho Chi Minh City।

As I approached the front door, the store appeared empty. When I entered, however, one of three uniformed employees emerged from a squatted position between the front window and the counter.
It became clear that the three clerks on duty were in the middle of eating dinner. Out of sight to passersby, they had gathered around a small plastic packing crate turned upside and were using the flat bottom as a table as they prepared their meal. The group was making sandwiches.
As I stood by the counter waiting to pay, I watched. A loaf of unhealthy looking white bread, two small cans of oily meat, and a plastic squeeze bottle of florescent red chili sauce comprised the list of ingredients one young woman was fashioning into a meal.
I had a visceral sense that people should not eat in the way I was observing. They should not huddle on the notso-clean floor of a convenience store and they should not consume such foodstuffs, if what they were eating even deserves that descriptor.
My intent is decidedly not to pass judgment. Both the clerks’ salary and their schedule likely make such foraging a necessity. In fact, I would argue convenience store owners should provide store clerks with the means to eat better. My main point, though, is that this anecdote might be a sign of something wrong with food systems in Vietnam.
This something wrong starts with how Vietnam grows and produces its food. But it also concerns the decisions of consumers, an increasing number of whom seem to be content with eating what food journalist Michael Pollan calls “edible foodlike substances.” People should be concerned with the shifts in food consumption in Ho Chi Minh City of which the convenience store picnic is likely evidence.
The abundance of individual food crisis in Vietnam over the past few years (regarding milk, tuna, and many other items) strongly suggests that the public does not always know very much about what they are eating. Average people only learn about such crises after several individuals end up in the hospital.
Yet, if a large portion of what a family eats is processed food, is there really any excuse not to be concerned? Should we trust the food industry with the safety of our food and the condition of our health? We know a company’s biggest concern is their bottom line, not our health.
But is this knowledge enough? Impressive crowds at the variety of fast food restaurants in Ho Chi Minh City suggest not. Too many people seem not to care enough about what they eat.
It is common knowledge that the low-nutrient, high-fat edible substances available at fast food restaurants are responsible for a range of negative impacts on health. Yet these restaurants are packed full night after night.
It is time for the city to wake up with regard to its food. This is not a matter of harkening back to a time when so-called traditional Vietnamese food was the only option. What is needed in Ho Chi Minh City is a significant change in thinking about what it means to feed a society. Sustainable and healthy food systems should draw on the best aspects of old and new ways of growing, producing and preparing food, while making the elimination of “edible foodlike substances” a key priority.
I have actually heard people bemoan the lack of McDonald’s restaurants in Vietnam. According to these voices, Vietnam still needs to develop further before its citizens can enjoy the luxury and satisfaction of a Big Mac. This is precisely the wrong thinking. Fast food represents the near opposite of progress.
The satisfaction that comes from eating can and should result from whole foods, and does not need to be associated with the latest fast food trends or marketing gimmicks, ploys that corporations often aim most directly at a society’s youngest. I’ve seen the results of children raised on fast food. Vietnam does not want to continue down this path.
With food-related health problems on the rise in Vietnam, there is no time like the present to think creatively and deeply about healthy eating, not only as an individual, but also as a society. In my opinion, it would be terrific if, in ten years, Vietnam was still McDonald’s-free.
By Rylan Higgins*
*Rylan Higgins, Ph.D, is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Loyola University Chicago and is currently working on educational programs in Ho Chi Minh City

Disaster relief is a necessity, not a convenience

As a person who has joined many aid missions to help victims affected by typhoons in the central region, I’ve seen cases in which groups distribute aid and goods as fast as possible so that they can go home early.
To distribute the goods quickly, many groups hand out as many goods as possible to people living in regions with favorable transportation systems that have been badly damaged by the storms.
Those relief goods do reach people affected by the storms but many others in more desperate situations don’t receive what they should. The people in moderately-damaged areas get much more aid than those in worse situations.
I once heard the story of a remote mountainous district where inspectors found rats in instant noodle cartons delivered as aid to a local distribution agency months earlier. The floods had stopped weeks before, and local residents had grown tired of the noodles and stopped eating them after months of practically living off them.
But in the meantime, people in other remote districts not far away were starving after storms ruined their crops and homes and relief agencies failed to make the trek to more isolated areas. All the while, the food just stayed where it was abundant, not where it was needed.
Since last year, aid work has been managed by the Vietnam Fatherland Front as regulated by the government. Centralizing the efforts could have been a way to facilitate aid work, but with a shortage of staff and the loads of relief donated by outside sources, it has been difficult for the Front offices to manage and distribute goods to the needy promptly and properly.
A suggestion by the Vietnam National Textile and Garment Group (Vinatex) could work.
An individual or company wishing to donate goods to the needy could register where and who they want to donate to at the local Fatherland Front office. The donors would then also suggest which individual or agency should transport and deliver the goods. Then, the local Fatherland Front office would just have to receive the goods, while distribution would be tasked to a local company.
With this suggestion, each agency has specific responsibilities in managing and distributing the goods. More importantly, the neediest people would get the most support as the donors would not want to waste their goods and they must choose the right agency to help send their relief.
Reported by Tra Son

Policy prescriptions based on faulty premises

Harvard policy discussion paper ignores history and a few inconvenient truths.

A woman in her house built along a polluted stretch of Cau Kieu Canal in Ho Chi Minh City’s District ४

The policy paper – Fulbright Economics Teaching Program (FETP) 2008* – makes a distinction between the Southeast Asian (SEA) economic growth model and the East Asian (EA) one.
The paper’s authors state that economic growth of the former (mainly Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia) is not sustainable unlike that of the latter (Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore – FETP classifies Singapore as a country following East Asian model although the city-state is in SEA). They situate Vietnam and China somewhere in between.
According to the paper, East Asians are rich and healthy; environmental pollution is less in EA, and EA has world-class universities. In contrast, SEA’s growth is based on cheap labor and exploitation of natural resources. In SEA, social disturbances and corruption are prevalent. Finally, SEA people can’t get quality education and health services.
To summarize, according to FETP, SEA is characterized by political instability and social inequality.
I think only a few of FETP’s distinctions are correct; but it is surprising to see that these views are presented as ultimate truths in the name of science, as it is often the case for economic papers.
For one thing, a military coup had also taken place in South Korea. After the coup in 1961, Park Chung-Hee (1917-1979), the head of the coup governed the country with military rule. He was succeeded by another general, Chun Doo-hwan (b.1931) between 1980-1988 who was notorious for the Guangju Massacre (1980). Chun was also succeeded by another general, Roh Tae-woo (b.1932) between 1988-1993. In other words, South Korea does not fit FETP’s distinction as a country following the EA growth model.
As for corruption, Japan and Taiwan are in the top ranks. Let’s not forget that Taiwan’s ex-top leader has been sentenced to life imprisonment for corruption. That means, in Taiwan, even the top leader can be corrupt, but he can’t be prosecuted as an incumbent. Thus neither Japan nor Taiwan fit FETP’s distinction.
As for education, it is a fact that EA has world-class universities; we need to discuss how that dream came true in another article. But in access to education, Japan and South Korea produce and reproduce inequalities.
The majority of the schools are private in these two countries. “Pay the piper, call the tune” is the motto in Japanese and South Korean education systems.
Furthermore, income inequality is not endemic to SEA. South Korea and Japan are also ranked high on inequality indicators.
With regard to environmental pollution, FETP is right. Pollution is mostly controlled in EA and it is common in SEA. However, there are factors that can’t be explained by FETP’s distinctions.
For one thing, labor is cheap in SEA and environmental regulations are loose. Many labor-intensive companies are moving to SEA. At least some of the labor-intensive industries are the dirtiest ones. In other words, pollution can’t be explained without considering the dimension of global division of labor.
EA is keeping itself clean by moving its dirty industries to SEA, taking advantage of the loose regulations and cheap labor, whether it directly or through subcontracting or outsourcing. SEA countries who are willing to do anything to attract foreign capital turn a blind eye to pollution by foreign companies.
Besides industrial pollution, household pollution is also observed in SEA; urbanites are polluting the cities. This is because of unplanned and rapid urbanization and rural immigration common in transition countries.
Thus the question is: What did EA do to control rural immigration?” Lo and behold! Two of the five EA countries in FETP’s classification are city-states! They don’t have villages; rural immigration is not a problem for them and they don’t have the highly costly burden of providing education, health and municipal services for distant areas. Thus, FETP’s comparison does not make sense. Nevertheless what South Korea, Japan and Taiwan did to control rural immigration is worth further inquiry.
Finally, the Japanese economy advertised as a success story is in deep recession since 1990s. If it was a model economy, it wouldn’t have gone into such a long recession. The countries that have been the worst affected by the crisis are the ones most connected to the global markets.
It is time for advisors of Southeast Asian countries to stop and think about the solidity of their analysis and conclusions before offering sage advice.
By Dr. Ulas Basar Gezgin**
* FETP (2008) “Choosing success: The lessons of East and Southeast Asia and Vietnam’s future. A policy framework for Vietnam’s socioeconomic development, 2011- 2020.” Policy Discussion Paper No.1. Fulbright Economics Teaching Program, Harvard Vietnam Program.
** Dr. Gezgin is a columnist, fiction and non-fiction writer and macroeconomics lecturer at RMIT Vietnam. This critique is a self-translation of his regular column on Asian affairs for a Turkish newspaper.

Finding Alice

Sweden’s latest pop sensation doesn’t know about her Vietnamese birth mother and her twin sister, but she’s about to find out।

Alice Linh is hot property after coming in second at Swedish Idol 2008।

Good-looking Alice Linh is hot property after coming in second at Swedish Idol 2008 yet it’s the story of her adoption and the good chance she will be reunited with her biological mother and twin sister that holds special appeal.
Alice Cecilia Linh Svensson was born in Vietnam in 1991 but grew up in Hedesunda outside Gävle, Sweden from the age of ten months.
Realizing that she could sing with the best of them, Alice competed in talent quests like Super Troopers in 2004 and was the runner-up in Joker two years later.
She appeared in the children’s show Lattjo lajban, Talang in 2007 and won that year’s Popcorn. Coincidentally, Popcorn was the name of the pop group she recorded an album with when she was only thirteen years old.
But her greatest achievement on stage, so far that is, was in the 2008 Swedish Idol, where she came second in the Globen final on December 12.
A Swedish reporter named Moniqa Swalas wrote a few articles about Alice that came to the attention of Thanh Nien, which decided to get in touch with her foster parents.
The secret of the up-and-coming teenage artist was revealed together with the identity and whereabouts of her Vietnamese mother thanks to the zeal of Le Cao Tam, general director of the tour company Motherland Heritage Ltd. Tam has a formidable reputation for tracking down missing people and has helped reunite hundreds of families in the past ten years or more.
Alice was born Nguyen Thi Huong Linh and has a twin sister named Hoai Linh. Their mother Nguyen Thi Thu Hien is originally from Thai Binh Province but lives in Hanoi these days.
After much time and trouble, Thanh Nien finally received a seven-page letter from Hien full of love for her far-off daughter and sadness that she had to lose her baby after her husband walked out on the young family and left the 20-year-old mother to struggle alone.
“I spent months thinking about giving my baby up for adoption before making up my mind. I will never forget that terrible day. My whole world collapsed but I had to do it as I couldn’t bring her up, not in my situation.
“The doctor suggested I offer Linh to a professional family. She was healthier than her sister. And she has a birthmark on the back that is easy to recognize,” Hien says.
Her circumstances have changed for the better but Hien is still haunted by the memory of her little girl.
Through Moniqa Swalas, contact was made with the adoptive parents. Alice’s foster mother, Katrin Svensson, was deeply touched when she saw a photograph of Alice’s mom and twin sister.
“I was moved to tears when I saw the picture of her sister. They are exact copies of each other, and her mother is beautiful. I can understand that they are waiting to hear from us. Tell them that we just need more time,” Katrin wrote in an email to Thanh Nien.
“Because Alice is away touring, we haven’t told her about the picture yet. I think it will be an emotional experience for her when she sees her sister.”
In another email, Katrin said that Alice has no memory of her origins since she was so young when she left Vietnam.
“Alice would be very surprised and of course happy about any contact, but we have to think how the news could affect her life,” Katrin said.
“She has always been curious about her origins but her career comes first. She is working hard and doing a lot of touring, and she could be making an album soon. Her focus right now is on becoming a major artist, so we’ll have to wait and see what develops.”
“In 2007 our whole family went to Vietnam for a holiday. It was a very nice trip and we love Vietnam very much. We hope we can go back some day and meet Alice’s biological family,” Katrin said in another email.
That could be soon as Thanh Nien wants Alice to appear in the Duyen Dang Viet Nam (Charming Vietnam) variety show in January. “We think it would be really great if Alice could take part,” Katrin wrote.
Hien has written to Stejvan and Katrin Svensson to make clear her wish to meet her daughter again and to thank the couple for raising Alice so well.
Reported by Dang Ngoc Khoa

Vietnamese American’s script honored at US film festival

A Vietnamese American won the Columbine Award, which honors works reflecting non-violent resolutions to conflicts, at the Moondance International Film Festival in the US.

Director Quan Lelan

The Princes Concubine by Quan Lelan tells the story of a fearless woman who uses her wits to save her country from a bloody war.
The script was also named as one of the 100 finalists from 4,394 scripts submitted Hollywood’s 2009 PAGE International Screenwriting Awards competition.
In 2007, Lelan, who holds a master’s degree in film from the University of Southern California, also won first prize at another Hollywood’s screenwriting contest, Cynosure, which honors work featuring female and minority protagonists in bold and non-stereotypical roles.
Founded 10 years ago, the annual Moondance festival in Boulder, Colorado is one of the leading indie film festivals in the US.
This year’s Columbine Award for a Feature Screenplay also went to Ruth Witteried for A More Perfect Union.
Source: Tuoi Tre

California Vietnamese call for open inquiry into police shooting

Members of a California Vietnamese community marched outside government offices Tuesday, calling for an open grand jury inquiry into a police shooting that killed a Vietnamese-American man in May.
Demonstrators in front of the Santa Clara County Government Office said they were calling for the Santa Clara District Attorney to open to the public a scheduled grand jury review of a case in which a San Jose police officer allegedly shot and killed Vietnamese-American Daniel Pham, according to local northern California news services.
The 27-year-old Pham was waving a knife when he was shot after cutting his brother Brian, according to local media reports.
The 50-60 protestors, which included Pham’s friends and family, local community groups and other citizens, presented the DA’s office with a petition of 1,000 signatures calling for the grand jury inquiry into the incident to be opened to the public, said regional news networks.
"In this case, our belief here at the DA's office is that the process works better when the grand jury remains closed," said District Attorney spokesman Nick Muyo, according to KTVU.com. The grand jury is scheduled to release its findings in about a month
Pham’s father, Vinh Pham, was quoted by the website as saying his family had called 911 when Daniel, who he said was mentally ill, started acting out.
“We want to know the reason why my son had to die. We want to call 911 for help. We don’t want to call 911 for kill,” said Pham.
Brian recalled that he had yelled out several times “Don’t shoot my brother!” in English. “After that I heard shots.”
But the police said they had to fire because Daniel refused to surrender.
The case reminded San Jose of an incident six years ago in which a city police officer shot and killed Vietnamese-American woman Bich Cau Tran when she refused to let go of a vegetable peeler, according to KTVU.com. The incident outraged the Vietnamese-American community, resulting in an open grand jury that cleared the officer of wrong-doing.
Source: Thanh Nien

Thanh Nien gets new editor-in-chief

(From left) Dang Thi Phuong Thao, Nguyen Quang Thong and Dang Ngoc Hoa

The Youth Union on Monday appointed Nguyen Quang Thong the new editor-in-chief of Thanh Nien newspaper effective immediately.
The newspaper’s former assistant editor-in-chief has been given the job for five years.
Dang Thi Phuong Thao, head of the Commission for Propaganda and Education at the union’s central committee, and Dang Ngoc Hoa, chief managing editor of Thanh Nien, were appointed assistant editors-in-chief.
Speaking at a ceremony for his appointment on Monday, Thong said Thanh Nien would go from strength to strength to meet the high expectations of the Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union, the Vietnam Youth Federation, and the newspaper’s many readers.
Source: Thanh Nien

Southern university offers Thanh Nien-sponsored scholarship

The Ho Chi Minh City University of Economics and Finance (UEF) announced a US$280,000-undergraduate scholarship program as part of a Thanh Nien-initiated fund in the southern metro on Thursday.
The first program of its kind offers 100 students the opportunity to attend UEF courses in cooperation with US universities like the University of Missouri, St. Louis, Houston, andVictoria, UEF Vice President To Thu Thuy said at the launching ceremony.
The one-year scholarships targets both high school graduates and undergraduates with good performance refords and English competency yet having financial problems, she added.
Set up by Thanh Nien in collaboration with Truong Hai Automobile Co. Ltd., and G7 Trade and Services Joint-stock Company in 2006, the Vietnamese Talent Fund has supported needy students with tens of billions of dong.
Interested students can get application forms and submit them to the UEF office at No.214-216 Pasteur Street, Ward 6, District 3, HCMC by October 3.
Reported by Thanh Nguyen

Vietnamese tourism needs to learn to use its strengths

A foreign tourist reads a guide book on Vietnam in downtown Ho Chi Minh City Foreign tourist arrivals to Vietnam have reduced remarkably this year as the sector has failed to make use of its strengths the way regional competitors have done.

Malaysia received 22 million foreign tourists in 2008 and expects to receive 23 million this year, despite the economic downturn, said Victor Wee, chairman of the Malaysia Tourism Association.
Foreign arrivals to Indonesia rose 8 percent in January year-on-year, 6.1 percent in April and 4.6 percent in July.
Meanwhile, foreign arrivals to Vietnam fell 17.7 percent to 2.48 million in the first eight months of 2009, with the number of tourists from key markets dropping by up to 35 percent, according to figures from the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism.
The number has continued to slump every month – 17.7 percent in January, 22.2 percent in February, 28.6 percent in March, 25.7 percent in April and 17.8 percent in July.
Other countries that saw arrivals drop experienced far less of a reduction, as low as 4.5 percent in Singapore and 3 percent in China in July.
All countries were hit by the economic crisis. So why has Vietnam’s tourism sector, which employs more than 10 percent of the country’s workforce, been unable to manage as well as its neighbors’?
What did Malaysia do?
According to Victor Wee, the country did several things that would not be difficult for Vietnam to do: enhanced advertising, improved product quality, introduced new products, and enlarged its target market.
Many international musical programs attract thousands of visitors to Malaysia every year.
The Monsoon Cup sailboat race attract tourists in the rainy and windy seasons while Vietnam tourism operators accept the rainy season as “idle” time.
Malaysia also organizes cross-border tours with Indonesia, which Vietnam can do as well by cooperating with Laos and Cambodia to offer tours throughout Indochina.
Malaysia has offered homestay and eco-tours targeting young visitors from Singapore, South Korea and Japan while we just tried to attract German tourists because of a statistic that said they traveled the most.
For most countries in the region, their neighbors are the number one tourism customer: Malaysia is a VIP customer in Thailand, Indonesia is the same to Singapore and vice versa.
Vietnam considers China its number one supplier of tourists but most Chinese come just for commercial purposes in northern provinces.
We’ve got tourism strengths just like others in our region. The problem is that we are not determined enough to make use of those strengths.
Reported by Tran Tam