by Trung Hieu”When we turned on the TV, we saw South Korean movies, music and celebrities filled the screen,” said Nguyen Chinh Liem, a retired man in Dong Da District of Ha Noi. “Why are we spending the country’s time and money to promote South Korean culture? It’s absurd!” Nguyen Hong Hanh in Hai Ba Trung District was equally annoyed. “As a captive audience, we have to watch the movies that the TV stations broadcast, but I don’t understand why the TV channels show Chinese and Korean movies all day. It bores viewers. I wonder if these channels have a conspiracy: broadcasting these shows all day in order to popularise the culture and history of these two countries?” This mentality recently motivated Hoang Huu Luong, chief of the Press Department under the Ministry of Information and Communication, to ask TV stations to limit foreign programming, especially Chinese and South Korean movies. “Radio and television should improve the quality of domestically made programmes and feature them more prominently,” he said. Many members of online forums supported this idea, saying that for a long time, the national broadcaster VTV as well as the 63 provincial television stations and dozens of other TV channels have relied too heavily on Korean and Chinese dramas. This not only skews viewer preferences, but also means that young viewers may identify with these foreign cultures better than their own. “The majority of young people now understand Chinese history better than Vietnamese history,” said one of them…. [Read full story]
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