B: depending on the postal service in your country, you may receive our parcel before or after the New Year. Christmas is one of several most important holidays in Vietnam, along with the Lunar New Year and the Mid-Autumn Festival.
A: Vietnam has the 5th largest Catholic population in Asia, after the Philippines, India, China and Indonesia. According to the Catholic Hierarchy Catalog “there are approximately 6 million Catholics in Vietnam, 7% of the total population.
B: At the beginning of the 16th century, the first Catholic missionaries came to Vietnam from Portugal. It wasn’t until the first decades of the 17th century that Christianity began to establish itself within the local population.
 St Joseph's Cathedral in Hanoi
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A: Catholics can practice their faith at a considerable number of churches across Vietnam. In Hanoi, the most famous and also the biggest church is St Joseph's Cathedral, which in Vietnamese is called “the Big Church”. It is located on Nha Chung Street, a short distance from Hoan Kiem lake near the center of Hanoi. Its architecture is modeled after Paris’s Notre Dame Cathedral. Cua Bac Church and Ham Long Church in Hanoi are also well-known.
 Notre Dame Cathedral is Ho Chi Minh City |
B: In Phat Diem town, Ninh Binh provice, there’s the extraordinary Phat Diem Church, built entirely of stone and wood. In the middle of Vietnam, in Hue City, Phu Cam Cathedral is the most famous and oldest. Notre Dame Cathedral is Ho Chi Minh City’s largest and most impressive church. It’s two 60-meter bell towers attract thousands of visitors each year.
 Phat Diem Church in Ninh Binh province.
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A: Christmas in Vietnam is a huge event, especially in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. Vietnamese Christmas celebrations are like in any city in the western world. Christians attend a midnight mass on Christmas Eve at one of Vietnam’s thousands of churches and chapels and return home to a sumptuous Christmas dinner, which may include anything from chicken soup to imported turkey and Christmas pudding.
B: Catholic churches often have a big nativity scene or 'creche' with life-size statues of Mary, Joseph, baby Jesus, the shepherds, and animals. In Ho Chi Minh City’s Catholic parishes some people have a crèche in front of their house and decorate the whole street with Christmas lights.
 Hang Ma street in Hanoi's Old Quarter sells all types of Christmas items.
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A: I’m reading an email from John Jurasek of the US, who listened to VOV’s English language service to North America on the frequency of 7315kHz at 1 UTC on Sunday, the 16th of December.
B: John said the Voice of Vietnam's English Service was received with excellent signal strength and clear audio. There was no interference or fading and the entirety of the broadcast could be heard with ease. John commented: “I enjoy listening to the Sunday Show. I feel it to be of great importance in regards to sharing the incredible culture of Vietnam with the world. Whenever I listen, I always learn something new about Vietnam. Though I do not write in very often, I listen regularly on 7315 kHz and reception is consistently fine.”
A: Shyamal Kumar Banerjee of India said he listened to a program on 7220khz on December 18 that had news and current affairs on global warming and startup businesses in Vietnam. The broadcast came in with good audibility and we’ll check the reception via Mr. Banerjee an enclosed audio file.
B: Richard Nowak of the US tuned in to our program on December 17 on 7315khz and rated the overall quality 5. He got perfect reception on a National NC-125 hooked up to an outdoor active loop antenna.
A: Richard congratulated Vietnam on all its recent good news – millions of football fans celebrated Vietnam’s victory in the ASEAN Football Cup, Ho Chi Minh City was named best city to visit for culture because of it’s great art and cuisine, and a Vietnamese female CEO made Bloomberg’s and Forbes’ lists of the world’s most powerful women.
B: Richard wrote: “The Sunday Show was awesome with a region in the Northwest mountains, home to 20 ethnic minorities and a great cuisine culture. Specialty dishes are created from vegetables – like Thai steamed vegetables, and fishbone and vegetables. Ginger is included in daily meals. Dishes should be seasoned with moderate amounts of spice. Leaves are stir fried with buffalo meat. The favourite dish of Thai ethnic people is vegetables stir fried with garlic. It can treat someone for stomach and diabetes. The dishes of the Thai people have unforgettable bitterness.
A: Siddhartha Bhattacharjee of India emailed us a reception report for the program on December 14 on the frequency of 7220khz. He said the signal was weak and rated SIO 433. Siddhartha asked about traffic accidents and precautions to prevent road accidents in Vietnam.
B: The National Traffic Safety Committee released a report in September which said 6,600 people were killed and 11,000 were injured in traffic accidents in Vietnam between January and October this year.
A: The National Traffic Safety Committee urged ministries, agencies, and localities to take steps to ensure traffic safety and reduce traffic accidents and congestion during national holidays.
B: The Ministry of Public Security directed traffic police nationwide to patrol 24 hours a day to catch traffic violations on highways and roads with high traffic density.
A: According to the National Traffic Safety Committee, traffic accidents claim the lives of 1,900 children a year in Vietnam. Making children wear helmets is a shared responsibility of schools and parents, who must teach children to obey traffic rules. Parents should make sure their children wear helmets when they are driven to school on a motorbike.
B: Social campaigns have been launched to raise public awareness of traffic safety for children. Helmets and first aid kits were given to high school students in Hanoi as part of a traffic safety project funded by Global Civic Sharing, a non-governmental organisation from the Republic of Korea.
A: Samsung Life Insurance and Global Civic Sharing provided first aid kits and motorbike helmets to 5,000 students and 500 motorbike taxi drivers in Hanoi.
B: This week many listeners updated their postal addresses. This will make it easier for us to send you verification cards, calendars, and New Year gifts. Thank you all for listening to VOV and sending us your reports. We will verify them soon. Please join us again next Wednesday for another edition of the Letter Box. Goodbye till then.