What happened in April 2013: news and events relating to Vietnamese at home and in the diaspora.
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Events
• The 9th annual Asian Heritage Street Celebration, Saturday, May 18, 2013, will have all types of Asian ethnic groups, including Vietnamese.
• May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. [WH]
Viet Kieu in the news
• Andrew Lam reflects on the Vietnamese diaspora.
• Vietnamese Australian lawyer Hoi Trinh reflects on events after April 1975.
• Bone marrow recipient, Vicky Tran, meets her donor. [NBC]
• Vietnamese-American actress Huong Hoang lost privacy case against the Internet Movie Database. [Photo by Huong Hoang]
• The San Francisco Global Vietnamese Film Festival (April 26-28, 2013) had showcased many Vietnamese filmmakers in Việt Nam and in the diaspora. [AW]
• A Vietnamese American reflects about looking back or not looking back and about hoping “not to be consumed.”
• Charles Phan is among the winners of the IACP Awards. He was also involved with Mission Dolores Academy’s annual benefit luncheon.
• Vietnamese Artist Coco Holds Gallery Show. [Photo by Patrick McMullan]
• Human rights campaigners testified on Vietnam’s human rights situation at a House Foreign Affairs Committee.
• Hui Danh, on behalf of her sister, testified before a global human rights panel of the U.S. House of Representatives. [Photo by RFA]
• Thao Nguyen performed “We The Common” from her “Thao & The Get down Stay Down” album.
•A U.S. bipartisan commission proposed that the State Department blacklist Vietnam because of its violations of religious freedoms. Read a related story.
News about Vietnam
• Some schools in Vietnam are experimenting with bilingual education for Khmer, Hmong and Jarai students. [Photo by Truong Viet Hung/Unicef Vietnam]
• A new metro system for Vietnam would provide an efficient mass transportation and would “be a more potent symbol of modernization.” [ANN]
• Vietnamese pregnant women are concerned about about birth defects from Agent Orange, an example of the American’s so-called “high value for human lives.” [Photo by Hoang Dinh Nam/AFP/Getty Images]
• Hanoi’s legendary colonial hotel, the Metropole, has opened its discovered bomb shelter to daily tours. [Photo by David Lamb]
• Vietnam’s gender imbalance poses “a real threat to the country’s future socioeconomic development and social welfare.”
• The Health Ministry and some other government agencies advocate same-sex marriages, “since it is a human right.”
• Two Vietnamese boys were killed and six children were by old mortar shell left by Americans during the Second Indochina War. [VBN]
• With nearly 70% of HCMC vulnerable to extreme flooding, flood risks are rising in the city’s lower-lying districts. [Photo by Alamy]
• With rising unemployment and increasing government corruption, “Vietnam is directionless.”
• Contention between officials over dam water adds to severity of drought in central Vietnam
• Without explanation, a “gang” of plainclothes agents blockaded monks in the Giac Hoa Pagoda.
• Researchers have discovered a system of lava caves in the southern province of Dong Nai, Vietnam. [VNB]
• A report shows Cambodia, Laos, Burma, Thailand and Vietnam have lost nearly 40m hectares (ha) of forest cover since 1980. [VOA] [Photo by Adam Oswell]
• Vietnam launched its first remote sensing satellite, VNREDSat-1. Plan for a second satellite is announced. [ST]
• Once again, so called Chinese “doctors” are found practicing without practitioners’ licenses and selling unapproved medicine in HCMC.
• Complaints from Van Giang’s residents concerning the government seizure of their farmland have not yet been addressed by officials. [Photo by a citizen journalist]
• Vietnamese consumers boycott drinking Coca-Cola, which has been evading paying taxes in Vietnam.
• The Central Highlands offers many delicious cuisines with special flavors.
• Some photos show Vietnam moving towards modernization after April 30, 1975.
• Photos of some people working in Hanoi’s Old Quarter. {photo by VOV]
• Russia has agreed to help train the Vietnamese Navy and build new ships for Vietnam as Hanoi seeks to counterbalance China’s maritime aggression. [Photo by AFP]
•HCM City’s Nutrition Programme for 2013-15 will combat rising child obesity.
• Proof that the Chinese have already invaded and taken over Vietnam.
Other News
• The film Apocalypse Now inadvertently created the Philippines’ surfing culture.
• A Chinese ship carrying Chinese tourists–known to everyone as saboteurs, spies and soldiers–headed for the disputed Paracels islands.
• A researcher at the American Museum of Natural History details her discoveries at the Na Hang Nature Reserve. [Photo by Minh Le]
• A Belgian couple makes a home for themselves in “an alternate universe” on the outskirts of HCMC. [Photo by Marcel Lam]
• See an interactive map of racist and other hateful Tweets in America. Click on “Racist” at the top of the map. Read the article about the map.
• Artist Jane Irish‘s artworks in her “Sông Hương: Withdrawing Room” exhibition depict “actual places along the Sông Hương river.”
• Trader Joe’s offers its own Sriracha brand. [Photo by Michelle Woo]
• Surveys revealed stress rankings among the fifty states.
• A Verizon annual report cites Chinese cyber-espionage is rising.
• A writer opines on the dangers of waiving constitutional rights.
Special thanks to Viet Thanh Nguyen for providing many of the news items.
Peace!
RP