Expat Advisory Services Vietnam

“If I have tourist friends come to visit me, I always have to take them to see the water puppets; that’s all I can do. But they don’t really understand what’s going on. Now I can take them to something like this. It is such a wonderful opportunity for tourists to gain an understanding of Vietnamese culture. The play is hilarious, funny and they can understand what happening, without having someone Vietnamese to explain the concept or what the story about.

Vietnamese officials have denied they are deliberately blocking access to social networking site Facebook.

State internet service provider FPT says it has been working with foreign companies to solve a fault blocking connections to Facebook's US servers.

But many of Vietnam's one million users have been reporting problems accessing Facebook, which recently launched a Vietnamese-language version, for days.

And workers at many web firms say the government ordered them to block it.

Giving names to children has never been so fraught with difficulties, as Vietnamese parents are bombarded with advice on tones, meanings, lucky numbers, family traditions and the pressures of adapting to increased use of English.

Names in Vietnam are heavy with meaning. Parents think that a child’s name plays a key role in the destiny of their children. Often names and derivative meanings of names are passed down through generations, partially as a way of paying respect to their ancestors.

Though everyone complains about the red and yellow buses barrelling down the centre of the road at peak hour, often oblivious to traffic and pedestrians, spare a thought for the men at the wheel.

35 year old Nguyen Ngoc Bau and 47 year old Tran VanToan are drivers for Hanoi Bus a subsidiary company of Transportation Service Company (TRANSERCO) I meet them at a tea stall at the end of their shift. They call for a third glass of iced tea and light up Vinataba cigarettes, puffing plumes of blue smoke reminiscent of the clouds emitted by their buses. Their weary eyes, drawn faces, and sweat-stained shirts are ample evidence of a hard day at work. This is the probably the most relaxed it gets for the two.