Rough Guide to Vietnam - Jan Dodd [33]
Specifically for tourists, the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (www.vietnamtourism.com) puts out the excellent free monthly, Vietnam Discovery. In addition to travel articles and restaurant and shop reviews, the magazine includes a handy pull-out listings supplement covering the main tourist destinations. Lastly, Vietnam Pathfinder (www.pathfinder.com.vn), also published monthly, is usually worth a look for its travel features.
Foreign publications, such as the International Herald Tribune, Time, Newsweek, The Financial Times and the Bangkok papers are sold by street vendors and at some of the larger bookshops and in the newsstands of more upmarket hotels in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi (see "Markets and shopping" and "Galleries" respectively).
The government radio station, Voice of Vietnam (www.vov.org.vn), began life in 1945 during the August Revolution. It became famous during the American War when “Hanoi Hannah” broadcast propaganda programmes to American GIs. Nowadays it maintains six channels, of which VOV5 broadcasts English-language programmes several times a day covering a whole range of subjects: news, weather, sport, entertainment and culture, even market prices. You can pick up the broadcasts on FM in and around Hanoi, Haiphong and Ho Chi Minh City.
To keep in touch with the full spectrum of international news, however, you’ll need a short-wave radio to pick up one of the world service channels, such as BBC World Service (www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice), Radio Canada (www.rcinet.ca) and Voice of America (www.voa.gov); local frequencies are listed on the relevant website.
Vietnamese television (VTV, www.vtv.org.vn) is also government-run and airs a mix of films, music shows, news programmes, soaps, sport and foreign (mostly American, Korean and Japanese) imports. VTV1, the main domestic channel, presents the news in English once a day, usually at 2pm. However, hotels increasingly provide satellite TV, and even budget places in the main cities now offer CNN, MTV and HBO as standard.
Festivals and religious events
The Vietnamese year follows a rhythm of festivals and religious observances, ranging from solemn family gatherings at the ancestral altar to national celebrations culminating in Tet, the Vietnamese New Year. In between are countless local festivals, most notably in the Red River Delta, honouring the tutelary spirit of the village or community temple.
The majority of festivals take place in spring, with a second flurry in the autumn months. One festival you might want to make a note of, however, is Tet: not only does most of Vietnam close down for the week, but either side of the holiday local transport services are stretched to the limit and international flights are filled by returning overseas Vietnamese.
Many Vietnamese festivals are Chinese in origin, imbued with a distinctive flavour over the centuries, but minority groups also hold their own specific celebrations. The ethnic minorities continue to punctuate the year with rituals that govern sowing, harvest or hunting, as well as elaborate rites of passage surrounding birth and death. The Cao Dai religion has its own array of festivals, while Christian communities throughout Vietnam observe the major ceremonies. Christmas is marked as a religious ceremony only by the faithful, though it’s becoming a major event for all Vietnamese as an excuse to shop and party, with sax-playing santas greeting shoppers in front of malls.
The ceremonies you’re most likely to see are weddings and funerals. The tenth lunar month is the most auspicious time for weddings, though at other times you’ll also encounter plenty of wedding cavalcades on the road, their lead vehicle draped in colourful ribbons. Funeral processions are recognizable from the white headbands worn by mourners, while close family members dress completely in white. Both weddings and funerals are characterized by streetside parties under makeshift marquees, and since both tend to be joyous occasions, it’s often difficult to know what you’re witnessing,