World cup makes atmosphere hotter in Vietnam
HANOI - The football atmosphere is becoming
hotter in Vietnam as the World Cup recently kicked-off in Asia for
the first time.
In beer pubs and coffee shops, at homes, fanatics of varying
degrees have been going berserk (over the spills and thrills of
the games).
Vietnamese people are really crazy football fans. The first
thing people talk every day is about football matches during the
month the World Cup happens. The interesting matches over the last
13 days has had million of Vietnamese glued to football matches on
television.
In order to serve football fans, more television sets were
installed at public gathering places. At Hanoi Train Station and
Giang Vo International Exhibition Center, people can even watch
football matches on 300-inch screen in air-conditioned comfort.
Now, in streets, posters advertising music and comedy
programmes were replaced by posters advertising sale promotion
campaigns on the occasion of the World Cup. Electronic shop
owners in Hanoi's Hai Ba Trung street said last month's revenue
was up five-fold due to television sales.
Vietnamese passion for football has a proven ability to cause
the nation to grind to a halt. There is no precise figure on how
many people in offices and factories have substituted work to
watch the month-long contest or its cost to productivity and
national economy.
However, a recent survey said more than 80 percent of employees
would this month choose football over work. "I have a whole life
to make money but it will be the first and only time in my life
that I can enjoy World Cup in daylight played in nearby countries,
" said Vietnam's Industrial and Commercial Bank official Nguyen
Trung Kien.
A branch of a computer company in Hanoi has also allowed its
employees to watch the matches on the condition they make up later.
As the head of the branch pointed out, they could easily have left
office under the variuos pretexts to catch the matches elsewhere.
Hanoi's Vietnam Tourism branch director Luu Nhan Vinh said :"
We always keep the company's benefit in our head. However, for
this Worl Cup, my employees and l could not resist the seduction
of the ball."
Others, not quite so lucky, have seen it fit to smuggle small
TV sets into the office in spite of knowing they would be found
out. They remained unfazed, however, by the threat of punishment
for, as a financial offical said, "nothing could stop the passion
for football."
The majority of the country's workforce face a tougher choice
and potential financial penalties for work absences. Company
directors are forced to become referees blowing the whistle on
missing employees while mindful of a firm's net profits.
And it is not just the men this time who have caught the fever
but the women too. The enthusiasm and knowledge of many ladies has
come as a huge surprise.
Remote areas in the country have also not escaped the epidemic.
Lo Van Inh lives in the country's mountainous province of Son La.
He sold corn to buy a TV set to watch the matches, though his
commune has not even been connected to the national power grid.
People can still watch, he said, because of the mini hydro-
electricity plant set up from public collections.
It is easily to see that the football atmospher is overwhelming
everywhere in Vietnam from big cities to countrysides, from cafe,
beer pubs to offices, and factories.
By Huang Haimin & Thai Thanh Van - Xinhuanet, June 12, 2002
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