JarJar Nixon's Blues Kitchen

It's available at Customflix.com and Amazon.com.

"Dat Kho" Land of Sorrows

Starring: Trinh Cong Son, Bich Hop, Yuan Ha, Van Quynh, Luu Nguyen Dot

Direced By: Ha Thuc Can

This 1971 foreign, English-subtitled film dramatizes the effect of the Vietnam War on a single South Vietnamese family, the inner conflict of decisions by each member of the family whether to remain in vietnam or leave with the imminent advance and fall of ue and eventual fall of Vietnam. Dat Kho is a
story of the love of family, love of homeland, love of the culture and language of Vietnam and the ethereal love of the ingenue daughter for her fiancé, foiled by the antagonistic forces of the ever-present war. It is thought-provoking, and at the same time it directly relates to present day conflicts such as the Gulf War and Iraq in challenging the reasons for foreign involvement in essentially a civil war and addressing the lessons learned or that should have been learned.

Review: Steven Hunter, Washington Post. "A real rarity -- I've seen this one, but almost no one else has -- is "Dat-Kho," translated from the Vietnamese as "Land of sorrows." And boy, is it ever. It's a fictional family melodrama actually filmed in the mid-'70s, during the fall; it follows the course of
the war as it implodes the life of five members of a family in Hue, including a draft dodger and a ranger captain. Those explosions in the background? Well, let's put it this way -- special effects courtesy of the North Vietnamese regular army. The film, which was literally locked in a trunk for 25
years and has emerged only recently (this is its first commercial showing in 25 years, possibly ever), was directed by Ha Thuc Can. Washington's large Vietnamese population and its community of retired old salts with shrapnel still
in their flesh should come out in droves for it."

_http://www.customflix.com/Store/ShowEStore.jsp?id=225161_
(http://www.customflix.com/Store/ShowEStore.jsp?id=225161)

Vietnamese News Agency (VNA)

April 20, 2007 Friday
DATELINE: HCM City April 20


Over 200,000 people are expected to attend a celebration of Viet Nam's
founding fathers, the Kings Hung, at HCM City's Suoi Tien Tourism Park
next week.

Festivities started on April 19 and will continue until April 21
afternoon, featuring dragon dances and traditional music from all three
of Viet Nam's major regions, north, central and south.

Over 10,000 college students and ethnic minority youths from the Thai,
Tay, Mong and E De groups have been invited to take part in a three-day
camp entitled Young People Commemorate the kings.

The celebrations will include other cultural activities such as song,
dance, traditional games and martial arts performances.

For the event, Suoi Tien has invested 4 billion VND (250,000 USD) to
upgrade its Kings Hung Temple and build a 2,000-person stage.

The story of the Hungs King is part-myth and part-history, but according
to the legend, 18 generations of Kings Hung founded and ruled Viet Nam
as an independent sovereign nation for over 2,000 years, from 2879 BC to
258 BC.

Monday, April 09, 2007

AP

HANOI, Vietnam --
A fugitive mouse delayed the departure of a Japan-bound airliner for
more than four hours Sunday as technicians hunted down the potential
threat, airline officials said.

A passenger spotted the white mouse running on the floor of the
plane
on an initial leg of the Vietnam Airlines flight, prompting a hunt
by
about a dozen technicians worried that it could chew through a vital
wire.

The mouse was found in a food storage area and the Boeing 777 was
cleared for takeoff, said Tran Tien Dung, head of the airline's air
safety department.

"This is the first time we experienced something like this," airline
spokesman Nguyen Chan said.

Chan said Vietnamese aviation authorities suspect that a passenger
brought the mouse on board in hand luggage.

Dung said the airline will caution passengers and increase baggage
checks to make sure that no live animals are brought on board.

The mouse was killed, Dung said.

http://www.vietfilmfest.com/home/home.htm

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The Associated Press

March 26, 2007 Monday 3:36 PM GMT

DATELINE: HANOI Vietnam

Television producers in this karaoke-crazy country are hoping to have a
smash with "Vietnam Idol," the newest version of the singing contest
that is a major hit in the West.

A Vietnamese advertising company purchased the rights to "American Idol"
for an undisclosed sum from FremantleMedia, which produced the first
"Idol" show in Britain, according to Nguyen Chi Tan, deputy director of
the Ho Chi Minh City Television network, or HTV.

The show, to be produced by HTV, will be broadcast on eight channels
nationwide.

Following the same format as the Fox network's U.S. show, a parade of
would-be pop stars will audition before a three-judge panel and try to
win the votes of television viewers across this nation of 84 million people.

Fox is owned by News Corp.

About 7,000 contestants are expected to audition next month in the
cities of Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Can Tho and Danang. The field will be
narrowed to 30 singers before the show goes on the air in May.

Week by week, viewers will vote by mobile phone text message to decide
which performers will progress to the next round, until a winner is
selected in September.

"'Idol' is one of the most popular TV shows in America and Europe. We
hope it will be the same in Vietnam," Tan said. More than 30 countries have
already broadcast their own versions of the "Idol" show.

The Vietnamese rights to the show have been purchased by the Dat Viet
Advertising Company based in the southern business hub of Ho Chi Minh
City.

_________________________________________________________________
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Iggy's Squid Shack
Phan Thiet, Vietnam
staticvoid@hotmail.com

>From: "Ogburn, Robert W" <OgburnRW@state.gov>
>To: "Robert Ogburn" <staticvoid@hotmail.com>
>Subject: FW: [vnnews-l] WO: Vietnams demographics show growing gender
>imbalance
>Date: Sat, 7 Apr 2007 10:47:54 +0900
>
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: owner-vnnews-l@coombs.anu.edu.au
>[mailto:owner-vnnews-l@coombs.anu.edu.au] On Behalf Of Stephen Denney
>Sent: Thursday, April 05, 2007 4:10 AM
>To: vnnews-l
>Subject: [vnnews-l] WO: Vietnams demographics show growing gender
>imbalance
>
>sent to vnnews-l by Stephen Denney <sdenney@OCF.Berkeley.EDU>
>
>
>
> Thanh Nien News | Society | Vietnams demographics show growing
>gender
> imbalance
> [logo_tnnews.gif]
> Vietnams demographics show growing gender imbalance
>
> Population experts told a seminar Sunday in Hanoi that a growing
> gender imbalance in newborns is showing that the number of female
> births is on the decline.
>
> Experts at the seminar Vietnamese population and future challenges
> said that according to a recent survey, the Red River delta in
> northern Vietnam had the highest regional imbalance in sex ratio
> within the country.
>
> For every 100 females aged 1 to 4 years, there are 116 males, while
> the figures in 1999 in northern cities and provinces of Hanoi, Hai
> Phong, Ha Tay, Hai Duong, Nam Dinh were 110, 118, 114, 113, 111
>males,
> respectively for each 100 females.
>
> The conference heard that parents' preference of having male
>children
> and the ensuing medical intervention was creating the imbalance in
> Vietnams population, which grew by 1 million in 2005.
>
> Head of the National Economics Universitys Population and Social
> Affairs Institute, Associate Professor Doctor Nguyen Dinh Cu quoted
> figures of General Statistics Department (GSD) in 2005 as saying
> Vietnam is the 13th most populous country in the world with 83.12
> million people.
>
> The GSD forecast that the national population will exceed 100
>million
> by 2024 with 335 people residing in one square kilometer of land.
> The doctor also quoted statistics that show Vietnams population is
> aging, with the elderly forecast to make up 13 percent of the
> population by 2024.
>
> Doctor Cus research also showed that Vietnams human development
>index
> (HDI) has constantly increased, but is still low compared to the
> global average.
>
> HDI is a United Nations statistic that is a comparative measure of
> life expectancy, literacy, education, and standard of living for
> countries worldwide.
>
> The malnutrition rate among children under-five is still high,
> especially in the Central Highlands and northwestern region. In
> contrast with the rural area, many children in urban centres are
> overweight or obese.
> On reproductive health, Vietnam was listed in the group of countries
> having the highest rate of abortion in the world, with young women
> making up a large proportion.
> Experts suggested increasing the awareness of family planning,
> birth-control, and a possible ban on ultrasounds used for gender
> selection as measures to help build a healthy and viable population.
>
> Source: TTXVN, Nguoi Lao Dong Compiled by Luu Thi Hong
>
> Story from Thanh Nien News
> Published: 02 April, 2007, 20:40:19 (GMT+7)
> Copyright Thanh Nien News
>Vietnam News List - vnnews-l
>http://coombs.anu.edu.au/~vern/forum.html
>List owner: Stephen R Denney <sdenney@ocf.berkeley.edu>
>
>To subscribe/unsubscribe send message to <majordomo@coombs.anu.edu.au>
>with the body reading:
>
>unsubscribe vnnews-l <your email address>
>or
>subscribe vnnews-l <your email address>
>

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http://english.vietnamnet.vn/lifestyle/2007/04/680106/

Vietnam has the first doctor in ca tru
17:36' 02/04/2007 (GMT+7)

VietNamNet Bridge - Mr. Nguyen Xuan Dien, Vice Director of the
Han-Nom Library (the Han-Nom Research Institute), has been conferred with
the first doctorate degree in ca tru, a type of popular Vietnamese folk
music.

In a dissertation titled The Roles of Han-Nom Materials in the
Research of Ca Tru, Mr. Dieu investigates 49 books and 70 tombstones
of the Han-Nom languages about ca tru, as well as other materials at
ca tru villages. Mr. Nguyen Xuan Dien is the first person to publish
the full version of a ca tru song titled "Non mai" and 9 types of ca
tru sung during ca tru originators worshipping ceremonies.
He also found the earliest evidence of ca tru, which is a song
written by Le Duc Mao before 1505, which leads to the conclusion that ca tru
existed in Vietnamese villages as early as the 15th century. In
addition, Mr. Dieu listed 99 different ways of singing ca tru for
different settings such as worshipping ceremonies and contests, as
well as provided exhaustive details on the castanets and prosody of
ca tru.

_________________________________________________________________
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Agence France Presse -- English
February 15, 2007 Thursday 3:41 AM GMT
At Tet New Year, Vietnam woos diaspora to build up homeland
BYLINE: Frank Zeller
HANOI, Feb 15 2007

As Vietnam seeks to launch itself into the world's economic mainstream, the communist state is wooing the country's 2.7-million strong diaspora to bring home their capital and brain power.
Some 150,000 overseas Vietnamese are coming home for Saturday's traditional Tet New Year, heading in from the US, Europe, Canada, Australia and other countries.

According to government estimates, the figure is 20 percent up on last year.

Many of the 'Viet Kieu' (overseas Vietnamese) fled their homeland during and after the Vietnam war that ended in 1975, often surviving harrowing journeys as boat people to start new lives in about 100 countries.

For many the memories are still too bitter for them to ever return, and many emigres in Los Angeles, Paris and Melbourne today actively oppose the authoritarian one-party state and support Vietnam's pro-democracy activists.

But a growing number of overseas Vietnamese are making the track back, often to mix family visits with business deals in the country that has changed from a shattered war zone into
Southeast Asia's fastest growing economy.

"It's changing very fast, the economy is booming," said Cong Nguyen, 44, who fled Vietnam via Hong Kong in 1979 to avoid the army draft and is now a property investor in London.
"Everyone is looking forward to the new year," he said.

To mark Tet, Vietnam's most important festival, the government threw a gala event for over 1,000 returnees last week at a new convention centre outside Hanoi, built for last year's Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation(APEC) summit.

President Nguyen Minh Triet and other top party officials rolled out the red carpet for the emigres at the "Homeland Spring" event, treating them to traditional sticky rice cakes in a hall decorated with peach blossoms.

Triet announced another gift for the visitors, pledging that Hanoi would soon allow visa exemption for Vietnamese holding foreign passports, and saying the government appreciated their contributions to the homeland.

Vietnam wanted its expatriates to help "build a strong country with prosperous people and an equitable, democratic and civilised society," regardless of their ethnicity, religion or reason for leaving Vietnam, he said.

For their part, many Viet Kieu were enthusiastic about the changes in their homeland, where the economy has hummed along at over seven percent a year for two decades, and which last month joined the World Trade Organisation.

One of the guests, Billy Pham who left in 1971 and now lives in Canada, said he was surprised to see the rise in mobile phones and chic cafes.

"Vietnam is opening up and ready to receive new ideas," he said.

"There are many new opportunities, and I don't want to miss them."
The new goodwill is a far cry from the distrust with which both sides have long viewed each other, a legacy of the country's wartime division.

Many in Vietnam resented those who left the country during its darkest hour, while the first, often well-heeled, returnees were shocked to find that Vietnam had become an isolated communist state with a crumbling economy.

But in a gradual shift, the yearly number of return visitors has risen from 150,000 in 1993 to 500,000 last year, said Tran Quang Hoan, deputy chairman of the Foreign Ministry's Committee for Overseas Vietnamese.

In 2004, Vietnam allowed Nguyen Cao Ky, former premier and vice president of the US-backed Saigon regime, to come home for Tet from Los Angeles.

Vietnam now greets visitors with youth volunteers at airports and arranges summer camps and language classes for second-generation Vietnamese emigrants.

Vietnam "welcomes Viet Kieu, without discrimination because of their past, their opinions and their reason for leaving the country -- providing they take no action against the Vietnamese state now," Hoan said.

Expats last year set up 400 new companies in the southern business hub of Ho Chi Minh City, from where many of their families hail, said the city's Committee for Overseas Vietnamese, the state-run Vietnam News Agency reported.

Hoan said Vietnam benefited from Viet Kieu's capital and remittances, believed to be in the billions of dollars, but stressed that "the biggest potential of overseas Vietnamese is their brain power".

Many overseas Vietnamese hold important posts at key universities, he said.

Viet Kieu can also "become a bridge between domestic enterprises and the world market," he added, because they speak the languages and understand the legal systems and markets of their adopted countries.

Pham, of Canada, agreed that Viet Kieu can help Vietnam by bringing local goods to world markets, overcoming today's economic and cultural barriers.

"As soon as we can work together," he said, "we can break the boundaries."

An old message that did not appear on this Blog earlier...

Agence France Presse -- English
February 9, 2007 Friday 8:17 AM GMT

Online, Vietnam's PM offers rare personal glimpse
BYLINE: Frank Zeller

DATELINE: HANOI, Feb 9 2007

Vietnam's prime minister offered a rare glimpse into his family life and wartime past Friday as he took online questions from the public in what the government billed as a show of openness.

In the premier's two-hour web chat, a first for the one-party state, Nguyen Tan Dung also touched on sensitive issues such as corruption and press freedom in a forum flooded with more than 20,000 questions.

Although entries were screened, the event received an enthusiastic response in the authoritarian state where state and party directives are usually delivered through tinny neighbourhood loudspeakers.

Asked why Dung, a veteran of what is called here the "American War," had later sent his son to study in the United States, the 57-year-old premier from southern Vietnam gave an unusually candid and detailed response.

"I spent 23 years fighting the US aggressors in Vietnam's southern battlefield," he wrote, saying that he lost his father and uncle to what was then a hated enemy and personally suffered 30 injuries.

"We, like all Vietnamese, hated the former aggressive regime and the US invasion troops, but we did not hate the entire US nation.

"We were thankful to those Americans who poured onto the streets to demonstrate against the war in Vietnam. We also felt for the American mothers who lost their sons and husbands in the Vietnam invasion."

Dung said that now Vietnam's ruling party and state wanted to "close the past, head toward the future and at the same time build and develop cooperative and equal relations between the two countries."

The premier also said he was surprised when he was chosen as premier last year but said he loved his job: "Some people said that as a senior leader, one may feel very lonely," he wrote.

"But I have never felt lonely. I don't know what other people think, but I feel life is always beautiful."

Many questions focused on corruption, which has caused much resentment here and which Dung has pledged to tackle hard.

Asked what he loved and hated most in life, Dung said: "I love honesty most, and I hate cheating most."

A graft fighter, he said, must tackle corruption "no matter who those corrupt officials are or what positions they have, and not fear complications, revenge or losing his position."

Many questions were technical, but in one of the most sensitive queries, Dung was asked why he last year signed an order to prohibit private media, and whether this contradicted Vietnam's official goal of freedom and democracy.

"It's true that on behalf of the government, I signed an instruction to strengthen the management of the media to best promote the role of the press in national development," Dung said.

He added that "this instruction is in accordance with Vietnamese law, and the majority of the Vietnamese people's aspiration. I think compatriots should support it and the press should obey it."

Dung said that while "achievements by the media must be respected... their mistakes must be seriously treated in accordance with our law."

The answer was telling in marking the limit of Vietnam's media freedom despite Friday's high-profile event, which the government says opens a new two-way channel of communication between the leaders and the people.

Cybercafes have mushroomed and Vietnam had 14.6 million Internet users late last year, or 17.6 percent of its population, according to the Vietnam Internet Network Information Centre.

But human rights groups and IT experts warn that Vietnam censors not only its traditional media but also the Internet, filtering and blocking websites and hunting a fledgling movement of online democracy activists.

Journalist Nguyen Vu Binh, one of the country's most prominent "cyber dissidents," has remained in a Vietnamese prison since his 2002 arrest for allegedly passing information to overseas groups through the Internet.

Agence France Presse -- English
January 30, 2007 Tuesday 10:56 AM GMT

No cigarettes, sunglasses on duty, Hanoi police told

HANOI, Jan 30 2007

Police in the Vietnamese capital have been told not to wear sunglasses, smoke, swear or keep their hands in their pockets while they are on duty, in an effort to improve their public image.

The order issued by Hanoi's police chief Nguyen Duc Nhanh this weeks follows complaints in newspapers and the city's coffee shops about the appearance of some of the city's estimated 20,000 police officers.

"The Hanoi police director asked policemen on duty not to put their hands into the pockets, smoke cigarettes, wear sunglasses or talk in impolite language to people," one police officer told AFP, asking not to be named.

"This is to improve the image of police before the people."

Deutsche Presse-Agentur
February 3, 2007 Saturday 11:32 AM EST
DATELINE: Hanoi


DPA CULTURE, ENTERTAINMENT Vietnam Nature Environment Vietnamese work to clean beaches of mysterious oil spill Hanoi Hundreds of Vietnamese soldiers and civilians worked Saturday to clean up the central coastlines from a mysterious oil slick.

So far, 30 tons of oil clumps have been gathered from beaches inQuang Nam province, home of the popular tourism town of Hoi An,according to Truong Van Bay, vice chairman of Hoi An People'sCommittee.

"We are able to clean the oil off the beaches but can't doanything about the oil slick at sea," Bay said Saturday. "So far, thecause is unknown to us."

Fishermen have reported seeing large oil slick at sea, butVietnamese authorities so far have not found the source, according toDuong Chi Cong, director of the province's environmental department.

He said it was too early to tell if lasting environmental damagehad been done, but called for help from the central government forthe cleanup.

Quang Nam province is famed for its long stretches of white sand.Its beaches, particularly Cua Dai beach, are home to several luxuryresorts, attracting visitors from all over the world.

However, Cong said some tourists had left the area since the oilstarted washing ashore on Tuesday.

"They are here at the beach for swimming and sunbathing, but theoil spill destroys their enjoyment," he said. Feb 0307 1132 GMT

http://www.journeyfromthefall.com/Home.aspx

Thanks to former Senior English Language Fellow Alex for sending the above link. Hope it comes to theaters here in Seoul.

Spent the past two days in Busan, including attending the conclusion of a Women's Leadership Seminar which my office sponsored. Then saw "Meet the Robinsons" last night--seemed oddly flat for a Disney feature film.

The New York Times
February 22, 2007 ThursdayLate Edition - Final

By NORIMITSU ONISHI; Su-hyun Lee contributed reporting.

DATELINE: HANOI, Vietnam

It was midnight here in Hanoi, or already 2 a.m. back in Seoul, South Korea. But after a five-hour flight on a recent Sunday, Kim Wan-su was driven straight from the airport to the Lucky Star karaoke bar here, where23 young Vietnamese women seeking Korean husbands sat waiting in two dimly lighted rooms.

''Do I have to look at them and decide now?'' Mr. Kim asked, as the marriage brokers gave a brief description of each of the women sitting around a U-shaped sofa.

Thus, Mr. Kim, a 39-year-old auto parts worker from a suburb of Seoul, began the mildly chaotic, two-hour process of choosing a spouse. In a day or two, if his five-day marriage tour went according to plan, he would be wed and enjoying his honeymoon at the famed Perfume Pagoda on the Huong Tich Mountain southwest of here.

More and more South Korean men are finding wives outside of South Korea, where a surplus of bachelors, a lack of marriageable Korean partners and the rising social status of women have combined to shrink the domestic market for the marriage-minded male. Bachelors in China, India and other Asian nations, where the traditional preference for sons has created a disproportionate number of men now fighting over a smaller pool of women, are facing the same problem.

The rising status of women in the United States sent American men who were searching for more traditional wives to Russia in the 1990s. But the United States' more balanced population has not led to the shortage of potential brides and the thriving international marriage industry found in South Korea.

Now, that industry is seizing on an increasingly globalized marriage market and sending comparatively affluent Korean bachelors searching for brides in the poorer corners of China and Southeast and Central Asia. The marriage tours are fueling an explosive growth in marriages to foreigners in South Korea, a country whose ethnic homogeneity lies at the core of its self-identity.

In 2005, marriages to foreigners accounted for 14 percent of all marriages in South Korea, up from 4 percent in 2000.

South Korean news organizations have reported that many of the foreign brides were initially lied to by their husbands, and suffered isolation and sometimes abuse in South Korea. Partly in response, the Ministry of Health and Welfare is now moving to regulate the international marriage industry, which emerged so suddenly that the Consumer Protection Board can only estimate that there are 2,000 to 3,000 such agencies nationwide.

After an initial setback -- his first three choices found various reasons to decline his offer -- Mr. Kim narrowed his field to a 22-year-old college student and an 18-year-old high school graduate.

''What's your personality like?'' Mr. Kim asked the college student.

''I'm an extrovert,'' she said.

The 18-year-old asked why he wanted to marry a Vietnamese woman.

''I have two colleagues who married Vietnamese women,'' he said, adding, ''The women seem devoted and family-oriented.''

One Korean broker said the 22-year-old, who seemed bright and assertive, would adapt well to South Korea. Another suggested flipping a coin.

''Well, since I'm quiet, I'll choose the extrovert,'' Mr. Kim said finally, adding quickly, ''Is it O.K. if I hold her hand now?''

She went over to sit next to him, though neither dared to hold hands. She spelled out her name in her left palm: Vien. Her name was To Thi Vien.

In South Korea, billboards advertising marriages to foreigners dot the countryside, and fliers are scattered on the Seoul subway. Many rural governments, faced with declining populations, subsidize the marriage tours, which typically cost $10,000.

The business began in the late 1990s by matching South Korean farmers or the physically disabled mostly to ethnic Koreans in China, according to brokers and the Consumer Protection Board. But by 2003, the majority of customers were urban bachelors, and the foreign brides came from a host of countries.

The widespread availability of sex-screening technology for pregnant women since the 1980s has resulted in the birth of a disproportionate number of South Korean males. What is more, South Korea's growing wealth has increased women's educational and employment opportunities, even as it has led to rising divorce rates and plummeting birthrates.

''Nowadays, Korean women have higher standards,'' said Lee Eun-tae, the owner of Interwedding, an agency that last year matched 400 Korean bachelors with brides from Vietnam, China, the Philippines, Mongolia, Thailand, Cambodia, Uzbekistan and Indonesia. ''If a man has only a high school degree, or lives with his mother, or works only at a small- or medium-size company, or is short or older, or lives in the countryside, he'll find it very difficult to marry in Korea.''

Critics say the business demeans and takes advantage of poor women. But brokers say they are merely matching the needs of Korean men and foreign women seeking better lives.

''But this business will get more difficult as those countries get richer,'' said Won Hyun-jae, the owner of i-Bombit, another agency. ''Now, even a disabled Korean man can find a Vietnamese bride. But eventually Vietnamese women will ask why they have to go marry a Korean man when life in Vietnam is good.''

For now, Vietnam remains a popular source of brides, second only to China. Marriages with Vietnamese women are considered so successful that the local government of at least one city, Yeongcheon, in South Korea's rural southeast, subsidizes marriage tours only to Vietnam.

At Incheon International Airport to the west of Seoul, an increasingly familiar scene unfolds in front of the arrival gates in the mornings. Korean men, holding telltale bouquets and often accompanied by relatives, greet their Vietnamese brides as they arrive on overnight flights from Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh City.

On the Marriage Tour

It was also at the airport that a tense-looking Mr. Kim and another client began their marriage tours. Three brokers for Interwedding and i-Bombit arrived.

Mr. Kim, urged on by an older sister, decided to go to Vietnam after a last-ditch effort to meet a Korean woman in December failed. A high school graduate, he lives with his mother and his sister, and he works on the assembly line of a small manufacturer of car keys. Though he lives in one of the world's most wired societies, Mr. Kim does not use the Internet.

The other client was Kim Tae-goo, 51, who grows ginseng and apples on the2.5 acres of land he owns in Yeongju, a town southeast of Seoul. Mr. Kim had recently divorced a Chinese woman he married after the death of his first wife, a Korean woman. He lives with his 16-year-old daughter and his elderly mother. His 21-year-old has left home.

Ahn Jae-won, a Korean broker who has long been based in Hanoi and is married to a Vietnamese woman, began: ''The women have come out looking their best for you. But don't expect them to look as pretty as Korean women. There is a big gap in our G.D.P.'s. Don't be condescending. Don't lie. If you lie, they'll find out eventually and feel betrayed and run away.

''The parents know that their daughters will marry a Korean man. The authorities know this is happening, but there'll be trouble if we do it in front of them. So I seek your understanding. Once we land in Hanoi, even though it'll be very late, we'll go meet the women right away. It's safer to do this at night.

''One last thing. Other companies allow you to sleep with the women on the first night. We don't. Only on the bridal night. We must, after all, keep our decorum as Koreanmen. Is that O.K. with you?''

The two nodded.Introductions and a Choice

And so, at the Lucky Star karaoke bar here, the older Mr. Kim addressed the Vietnamese women, most in their early 20s.

''My 16-year-old daughter lives with me, and I'm a farmer,'' he said, after informing the women through the brokers that he would also send $100 a month to their parents in Vietnam. ''Is that O.K. with you?''

''I know how to farm,'' said Bui Thi Thuy, 22, one of the two women Mr. Kim eventually focused on.

Asked whether she had any questions, Ms. Thuy said she had none. But the other woman, an earnest 28-year-old in a light-green jacket, asked, ''If I marry you, will you love me and take care of me forever?''

''Of course,'' Mr. Kim answered, then quickly settled on Ms. Thuy.

After a few hours' sleep, the new couples and the brokers squeezed into a small van for the four-hour ride to the women's home province, Quang Ninh, about four hours east of Hanoi. There, the couples would be interviewed by the local authorities before registering for their marriages.

The road out of Hanoi, a wide highway flanked by new factories owned by multinationals like Canon, eventually narrowed to two lanes crisscrossed frequently by cows. Farther out, farmers could be seen working the soil by hand, and signs of Vietnam's booming economy grew fewer.
Most of the Vietnamese women marrying Korean men came from the rural areas around Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.

Both Ms. Vien and Ms. Thuy had friends who had married Korean men and lived, happily it seemed, in South Korea. Like many Vietnamese, they were also avid fans of Korean television shows and movies, the so-called Korean Wave of pop culture that has swept all of Asia since the late 1990s. The Korean WaveThe Korean Wave has transformed South Korea's image in the region, presenting the country as having successfully balanced tradition and modernity, a place that produces coveted Samsung cellphones and cherishes family ties.

The week the two women met their future husbands, Vietnamese television was showing in prime time a South Korean television series called ''Successful Story of a Bright Girl'' -- the story of a simple country girl who goes to Seoul and captures the heart of a tycoon.

''To be honest, I don't know much about Korea except what I've seen on television,'' Ms. Vien said. ''But the Korean landscape is beautiful. Korean men look sophisticated and affectionate. They seem responsible, and they live in harmony with their family members and their colleagues.''

A soccer fan able to rattle off the jersey numbers of David Beckham and Zinedine Zidane, she had registered two years earlier with a broker for marriages with Koreans. Her father, a construction worker for a local firm, was able to send his two children -- Ms. Vien and her older brother-- to college.

By contrast, Ms. Thuy was one of five children of rice farmers. She had registered with the agency soon after graduating from high school.

''A friend of mine married a Korean man and now lives in Seoul,'' Ms. Thuy said. ''We talk on the phone sometimes. She's very happy. She says there are so many people and tall buildings in Seoul.''

At age 22, she said, half of her peers had already married. As she waited to marry, she helped with household chores, forbidden by her parents to engage in the farm work that might blemish her looks.

The couples registered for their marriages and underwent medical checkups, running into other Vietnamese-Korean couples along the way.

The younger Mr. Kim wrote a letter in Korean to his bride -- trying to allay the anxieties he saw on her face, promising to protect her and surmount the inevitable problems -- but found no way to relay its meaning. The couples bought Korean and Vietnamese dictionaries, pointing to words or using broken English.

The In-Laws

About 40 hours after landing here in Hanoi, the Korean men married their Vietnamese brides in a double ceremony. The brides' relatives waited at a large restaurant here with expectant looks.

''Today is the union not only of two people, but of two countries,'' said Ms. Vien's father, To Minh Seu, 55. ''Vietnam and Korea share many similarities. We are both Confucian societies.''
Standing next to her daughter and her new son-in-law, Ms. Thuy's mother, Nguyen Thi Nguyet, 56, said: ''This is a poor country, but conditions are much better in Korea. I hope my daughter will have a better life there.''

But Ms. Thuy's father, Bui Van Vui, 52, was displeased that his daughter was marrying a man just one year younger than he was. The night before, he had telephoned Mr. Ahn to complain about the age gap between his daughter and Mr. Kim.

''I'm still very worried because of the age gap,'' he said as his son-in-law listened to Mr. Ahn's interpretation. ''I'm slightly relieved now that I see my son-in-law for the first time. But I can't stop worrying.''

''Don't worry, don't worry about a thing,'' Mr. Kim said.
Still, the father looked grim throughout the ceremony.

''Let's tell him about the compensation,'' Mr. Kim told Mr. Ahn, referring to the $100 he would send every month.

''Later, later,'' Mr. Ahn said.

As he left the restaurant after the ceremony, the father turned around at the entrance to take a final look at his daughter. He pressed two fingers against his lips and kissed her goodbye.
Later, Ms. Thuy said: ''I was my father's favorite. He really adores me and is worried.''

She, too, was worried. ''I know Korea only from television, but it must be very, very different from reality. I don't know whether my new family will like me, and I don't know how I'll adapt. I'm overwhelmed with worries.'

'A New Chapter Begins

Two days later, it was time for the Korean men to return home, with their wives staying behind to complete the paperwork to join them.

At the airport here, Ms. Thuy announced that she had something to tell her husband and asked Mr. Ahn to interpret.

I think Callie is about two years old here. Have unearthed some old digital photos.

We used to check her height by how far she stood under the handrail on the elevator at Somerset. Then one day she wouldn't fit under it...