Life in Vietnam

Unemployment falls sharply, reports Labour Ministry

2009-11-11T02:56:00.001-08:00

In the third quarter of 2009, only about 11,200 workers were unemployed, a reduction of 83 percent compared to the first quarter, reported the Ministry of Labour, War Invalids and Social Affairs (MoLISA) on November 9.

The top five jobs in the third quarter include salesmen, accountants, engineers, secretaries and IT-software experts.

Hanoi had few newly unemployed workers in this period compared to over 13,000 in the first quarter of 2009. Hai Phong has experienced similar conditions compared with the over 4000 workers fired in the first three months of 2009.

Approximately 3000 people in Hanoi became jobless in this period. The figure is more than 1000 each in Ha Tinh, Thanh Hoa and Nam Dinh. Unemployment is mainly reported at foreign-invested firms, which produce leather and footwear, garments, seafood processing, automobiles, the electric and electronics industry and wood processing plants.

MoLISA predicts that, along with the Government’s stimulus package, the number of jobless workers will continue to decrease through December. The need for workers is expected to escalate in the last three months of 2009, with 20,000 needed in Binh Duong, 8700 for Long An and 7000 throughout Long An province.

Craft villages and rural cooperatives are enduring hard times. By the end of September, more than 40,000 workers lost their jobs. In addition, over 100,000 others only have part-time work.

The market for highly skilled workers appears to be recovering gradually. According to Vietnamworks.com, the largest online recruiter in Vietnam, the demand for highly quality labour in the third quarter grew by 11.4 percent compared to the second quarter and is up 52.4 percent compared with the first quarter of 2009.

The top five jobs in the third quarter include salesmen, accountants, engineers, secretaries and IT-software experts.

The third quarter has also witnessed a new trend of recruiting foreigners for management positions. During the economic crisis, foreigners and overseas Vietnamese have flocked to Vietnam seeking employment and creating a to seek job, creating a new fad of “recruiting international personnel at local rates.”

VietNamNet/VNE

Nominees for Golden Lotus Film Award announced

2009-11-11T02:55:00.001-08:00

The Golden Lotus Award competition of the 16th Vietnam Film Festival has revealed the list of nominees. The festival will be held in HCM City from December 8-12.

A scene from "Adrift".

According to the Vietnam Cinema Administration, films produced and distributed between the 15th and 16th festivals (November 2007 to December 2009) can join.

Film studios have the right to choose nominees for the Golden Lotus Awards without quantity restrictions. The submission deadline was October 20.

In the past two years, Vietnamese film studios produced nearly 30 large-screen movies, such as “Don’t Burn,” “Moon in the Bottom of the Well,” “Adrift,” “The Owl and the Sparrow,” “The Legend Is Alive,” “Black Forest,” “Little Heart,” “Passport of Love,” “14 Days,” “The Price for a God,” “Saigon Love Story,” “Saving The Death,” “The Hot Kiss,” “Blink of Fate,” “I Want to Be Famous” and “The Dance of Death.”

According to the festival’s organizing board, over 20 will participate in the festival.

Thien Ngan Galaxy, a big film producer and distributor, said that this year, it will submit only one work, “Saving the Death,” a best-seller in the Tet 2009 film season. Meanwhile, BHD said that its nominee is “Beautiful to the Last Centimetre.”

Thien Ngan and BHD only produce films for popular audiences during the Tet film season so they will only send one film to the festival.

Meanwhile, Phuoc Sang is a private firm with the highest number of nominees, three films: “Swordman,” “Miss Muoi” and “Legend Is Alive.”

Chanh Phuong Films registered two movies, “14 Days” and “The Owl and the Sparrow.”

For state film companies, the number of nominees is remarkable, with three from Vietnam Feature Films Studio: “Black Forest,” “Little Heart” and “Still Alive.”

The latest is the first large-screen movie by Tran Trung Dung, a true story of a flight attendant named Hoang Thi Thu Hang.

The Vietnam Movie Association Film Studio’s Director Hong Ngat revealed that her company submitted two films: “I Want to Be Famous” and “Don’t Burn,” which will represent Vietnam at the Oscars.

The Feature Film Studio chose “Adrift.” This film will be introduced in local cinemas as of November 13, after traveling to many prestigious international film festivals like Venice, Toronto, Pusan, London and Bangkok.

“The Moon at The Bottom of the Well” will represent the Liberation Film Studios.

This year, besides familiar awards, the organizing board will present the “Best Film” award voted on by the media.

The Vietnam Film Festival is organized by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Vietnam Cinema Administration each two years. It is one of the two key film events in the country, besides the annual Golden Kite Awards of the Vietnam Cinema Association.

Bich Hanh

Three million people own 40 million mobile numbers

2009-11-11T02:54:00.001-08:00

Seven mobile operators in Vietnam have over 80 million subscribers as of November 2009, but half of the numbers are being used by three million people.

This figure was disclosed by mobile operators in a meeting with the Ministry of Information and Communications last week.

According to mobile networks, up to 40 million sim cards are registered under the names of 3 million people. Most of the sim cards have been activated and sold at mobile agents.

By the end of December 2009, all pre-paid mobile subscribers will have to declare their personal information. Each of them will be allowed to use up to three sim cards from each mobile network.

The Ministry of Information and Communications seeks to halt services for subscribers who don’t declare their personal information. Also, the millions of mobile numbers held by these 3 million people will be deactivated.

Deputy Minister Le Nam Thang asked mobile operators to remind their subscribers to register their phone numbers before the deadline.

VietNamNet/VNE

Ha Noi fetes Schiller’s 250th birthday

2009-11-11T02:53:00.002-08:00

German playwright Schiller’s The Robbers will be performed by a group of secondary-school students in Ha Noi tonight, November 11.

Robbed! Vietnamese students from Viet-Duc Secondary School will take turns playing the main roles of the drama.
The performance marks the 250th birthday of Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller (1759-1805), a German poet, philosopher, historian, and playwright.

Schiller is considered by most Germans as their most important classical playwright. The Robbers (Die Ruber) was Friedrich Schiller’s first drama. The play was published in 1781 and premiered on January 13, 1782 in Mannheim, Germany.

The language of The Robbers is highly emotional, and the depiction of physical violence in the play marks it as a quintessential work of Germany’s Romantic ‘Storm and Stress’ literary movement.

It is considered by critics, such as Peter Brooks, to be the first European melodrama. The play pits two brothers against each other in alternating scenes, as one quests for money and power, while the other attempts to create a revolution in the Bohemian Forest.

Dr. Dieter Kirsch is director of the drama which features the participation of about 29 secondary students from the Viet-Duc Secondary School in Ha Noi. He came here last month at the invitation of Ha Noi Goethe Institute.

"This is the first time I’ve visited Viet Nam, and it’s the first time I’ve worked with Vietnamese students, so it’s quite different for me. They haven’t studied much about Schiller so they just do what I say," said the director.

The students will take turns playing the main roles of the drama, a method the director has employed in Russia, South Africa and Uzbekistan previously.

The drama will be narrated by two girls. One 10th grade student will act as Schiller, who will also appear in the stage. "I’ve never read Schiller before. I’ve had to learn the script by heart, and it’s helped me understand the story more," said Tran Dinh Hung Son.

The performance is funded by the Goethe Institute to help Vietnamese high-school students who are studying German discover more about the playwright, said Dinh Tuan Anh, from the institute.

A book of Schiller’s works will be launched by the institute before the performance. The events will begin at 7pm at the Youth Theatre.

VietNamNet/Viet Nam News

Text message school reports mean no hiding place for kids

2009-11-11T02:53:00.000-08:00

Sporadic school reports may have been bad news for some pupils, but it just got worse – electronic reports can now be sent almost daily.

Traditionally in Vietnamese schools the school report was in book form – carried around in the school bag and filled in as often as once a month, parents could follow failures and successes.

However, now schools are instead using a new computer software system which sends text message reports to anxious parents – often daily.

“The student did not learn well in lessons today and did not concentrate,” this was the message sent to Ngoc Nhung’s mobile phone, a parent of a 9th grade student of Tran Van On Secondary School in district 1 of HCM City late last week.

Nhung said she receives messages regularly which tell her of her son’s activities at school. She said she and her husband are both very busy and cannot keep close watch over their son’s study. However, thanks to the test message reports, generated by software called, called ‘Ectschool’, Nhung says she feels she is always in touch.

Doctor Nguyen Thi Ngoc Phuong, who was once the director of Tu Du Maternity Hospital, also likes receiving information about her grandchild who is going to Tran Hung Dao Primary School. A recent message reads: “10 for mathematics and 10 for Vietnamese language tests. Eating like a horse, playing ping-pong well”.

Phuong says the updates are very useful for parents who do not have time to keep close watch over their children.

According to Bui Duy Phuong, Headmaster of Tran Hung Dao Primary School, 80 percent of parents use the system, while the figure is 50 percent at Ket Doan Primary School.

Le Ngoc Diep, senior official of the HCM City Education and Training Department, says traditional reports are still being upheld. However, parents nowadays demand more information about students more regularly. Therefore, the Ectschool is a good solution.

However, not everyone is in favour. Some educators warned that in some cases, the system can do more harm than good. Students may feel uneasy when they know every move is being watched and reported back to parents.

Others feel parents would be better to spending their time talking with their children to find out their problems rather than relying on short updates from a third party via text messages.

VietNamNet/NLD

Enjoying sidewalk beer and pipe tobacco in Hanoi

2009-11-11T02:52:00.001-08:00

Hanoi, the city of almost 1,000 years, boasts ancient temples, pagodas and splendid landscapes in harmony with the luxury hotels and restaurants of the developing time. Among all this, the ancient quarter of Hanoi with its narrow streets holding old houses and traditional craft villages, seems to be the most attractive site in Hanoi.

A foreign tourist takes pipe tobacco at a sidewalk beer shop on an ancient street in Hanoi.
Locals do not know exactly why foreign tourists like visiting the old streets. Some say because they are located in the center of the city, some say because of the 18th and 19th century French architecture. However, there is more to it. Tourists can enjoy things that are available only there. Those things are sidewalk beer and pipe tobacco.

The area is rather small but always jubilant as foreign tourists and sidewalk beer shops appear almost everywhere. Sidewalk beer shops have no tables, just some small chairs for people to sit and place their mugs and enjoy a pipe of tobacco. The pipes, usually made of bamboo or clay, typically consist of a small chamber (the bowl) for the combustion of the tobacco to be smoked and a thin stem (shank) that ends in a mouthpiece (the bit). Pipes can range from the very simple machine-made briar pipe to highly-prized handmade and artful implements created by renowned pipe makers which are often expensive collector’s items.

The buzz created by the harsh tobacco and the icy crisp beer more than offsets the cold of winter in Hanoi. Moreover, while enjoying beer and tobacco on the sidewalk, tourists can discover the daily life of the residents, busy and bustling.

Beer at sidewalk shops is just VND3,000 so it is not a luxury beer with a fragrant flavor but it has its own rustic and simple flavor that tourists cannot find anywhere else. “Traveling is to explore distinct things, different from home, that is why I like sidewalk beer,” said a tourist in Hanoi.

Hanoi is getting colder and colder as winter comes and this is an ideal time to enjoy sidewalk beer together with pipe tobacco. Why not take a tour of the ancient streets and experience these exotic flavors to remember Hanoi forever?

VietNamNet/SGT