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[Hurricane88]

Vietnam weighs record-long Lunar New Year break

By VnExpress October 19, 2016 | 12:00 am GMT+7

State employees could for the first time have 10 days off for the Tet holiday.
The labor ministry has proposed two options that could for the first time grant state employees 10 days off for the upcoming Lunar New Year (Tet) holiday.

Under the first option, government offices and state-owned companies will close for seven days from January 26 to February 1.

The longer 10-day option would start on January 27, the last day of the current Lunar New Year, and end on February 5. However, under this option offices will have to stay open on Saturday, February 11 to make up for the day off on Friday, February 3.

Schools and other businesses in the country usually follow the same break as government offices.

The upcoming Year of the Rooster will peak on January 28, and is the biggest holiday in Vietnam.

The government approved a 9-day break last year. If a 10-day break goes through this year, it would be the longest in years, but some are not thrilled by the idea.

Lao Dong (Labor) newspaper, under the Vietnam General Confederation of Labor, said many people are worried they won't have enough time to prepare for the festival if they are only allowed to leave work the day before the new year. In previous years, the holiday break started three to four days prior to New Year's Day.

The festival is a time for family reunions in Vietnam and is usually a time for migrant workers to travel home before the Lunar New Year Eve.

Ho Hai Quan, who works with his wife in Hanoi, said he was “shocked” at the possibility of the record-long break.

Quan said he is worried that there will not be enough time for him to travel home to Nghe An Province, which is 290 kilometers to the south of Hanoi.

Le Nho Luong, a labor union chairman at an industrial zone in Binh Duong Province near Ho Chi Minh City, said the 10-day holiday would not help workers.

Luong said factory workers, most of them migrants, usually receive their salaries and holiday bonuses on the last working day of the year, which they use to buy tickets and gifts to travel home.

“If the workers have to work too close to the holiday, they won’t be able to focus and won’t be productive,” he told Lao Dong.

Critics of longer Tet breaks argue that a protracted holiday is no longer suitable for the modern economy of a country where the average annual income was $2,100 last year, according to the World Bank.

The frenzy of consumerism that has emerged around Tet is not a good thing, they say.

The labor ministry has also submitted public holiday plans for the rest of 2017, including two options for the Hung Kings' Festival, the day to commemorate the death of the kings considered to be the founders of Vietnam.

The break could be just for a day on Thursday, April 6 (the 10th day of the third lunar calendar month). The other option preferred by the ministry is a four-day break including a weekend, but workers would need to make up for the Friday off on the Saturday the week after.

Other public holidays in 2017 include the New Year (December 31, 2016 to January 2, 2017), Reunification Day and Labor Day (April 29 to May 2), and Independence Day (September 2 - 4)

If both shorter options for Tet and the Hung Kings' Festival apply, there will be in total 18 days of public holidays in 2017. Under the longer options, that number will go up to 24.

[Honey Boon]

got kookle translate ma ....

Originally Posted by snipeshot08

Wah you win liao I really do not know what to reply to this comment.....

Because my cheena is half-pail-water .......

Cheerios......SS08 ^_^

[Honey Boon]

but recently our SGD weak leh .... may be bonk 1 time less or less one bowl of pho liao .... huhuhu

Originally Posted by snipeshot08

Thats why we must CBL in Wetnam more often......

Cheerios......SS08 ^_^

[Honey Boon]

oh .... like that we can't go cheong together liao .... :

Originally Posted by snipeshot08

Seriously speaking I am quite lucky as beautiful girls have never been been my types I rather prefer those sweet or cute looking as compared to beautiful or elegant tall model-types

Cheerios......SS08 ^_^

[Honey Boon]

older men like us ... worse ...

Originally Posted by snipeshot08

This statement is quite true thats why emotions is always a killer and we as men are always vulnerable & prone to this........

Cheerios.......SS08 ^_^

[Honey Boon]

you never know .... suddenly .... can liao

Originally Posted by Hurricane88

Vn wil allow betting on soccer too soon...what sai also legal soon except whoring...

[Sergeb]

We group of cheongsters from Hollywood days. One of Bro got cheated big time by whore. If you check our IP... It's even different countries lah. Thanks for your patience.

[Hurricane88]

Originally Posted by Sergeb

We group of cheongsters from Hollywood days. One of Bro got cheated big time by whore. If you check our IP... It's even different countries lah. Thanks for your patience.

Definitely i can understand...

What is the point now to shame her...did you notice she will still get clients who willingly give money to her since she willing to open her legs...

She will get her karma only time will tell...just move on and take this as lesson learned...

[Hurricane88]

Originally Posted by Honey Boon

you never know .... suddenly .... can liao

Prostitution can never be legalised in communist country...but the gahmen knew cannot fully eradicate so long do underground and not in the news...

[Hurricane88]

Bro SS08 run awol again...

[Hurricane88]

Exploring Vietnam’s Lunchtime Sex Motels

September 30, 2016


In terms of vices, Vietnam is a country with its priorities firmly in place. A pack of Marlboro Reds is cheaper than a cup of coffee, a litre of Hanoi Vodka – the country’s vaguely drinkable answer to Glen’s – costs less than a box of cereal and the best part of two months each year are given over to a huge party called Tết, which is kind of like New Year’s Eve and the last night of Glastonbury rolled into one, but with a few more firecrackers, masks and games of “catch the duck blindfolded”.

But it’s at lunchtimes when the country’s capital Hanoi really comes into its own. While the rest of us are stuck wrestling over the benefits of splashing an extra 90 pence on a sandwich with real animal meat in it, horny Hanoians are meeting in specialist motels across the city for midday liaisons.

The Nha Nghi (which translates to “rest house”) is a fairly modern phenomenon, with venues springing up all over the country’s major cities throughout the past ten years. In Vietnam, sex before marriage is akin to dedicating an unhealthy portion of your afternoon to The Sidebar of Shame – assumed but rarely admitted – so Nha Nghis provide the ideal cover for young lovers eager to escape the judgement of their parents.

And while lunchtime make-out sessions are a staple extra-curricular activity for Vietnamese high schoolers, it’s a habit many never grow out of, meaning the discretion of Nha Nghis make them the ideal location for adults all the way into their late sixties rendezvousing with their bit on the side. Unsurprisingly, it’s mostly these slightly more moneyed polyamorists booking the Nha Nghis out months in advance for Valentine’s Day and public holidays, despite the 300 percent mark-up.

Vietnam Lifts Controversial Nudity Ban

Vietnam’s 100,000 sex workers

“In contrary to their repressed image in the West, Vietnamese people are actually very liberal and affairs are extremely common,” one hotel worker told me. “My ex-partner was a wealthy man and would meet up with three or more girls a week. When it’s so easy to hook-up, Vietnamese find it difficult to be faithful – especially the men.“

Considering they start at just £2 an hour, rooms are remarkably clean and well-furnished. The one I checked out in Hanoi’s Long Biên district reminded me a bit of a UK Travelodge, only without the cultural baggage of Alan Partridge and footballers with a penchant for sexual assault.

As with most tales of 21st century sordidness, the internet had a large role to play in the explosion of Nha Nghis. Yahoo! Chat became wildly popular in Vietnam during the mid-00s and, all of a sudden, cyber Casanovas had an endless resource of potential partners to poke, persuade and plead into the sack.

Hung, a borderline sexual deviant who claims to have bedded over 60 girls in Nha Nghis across a two-year period, before doing the “honourable thing” and marrying the first girl he impregnated, said chatrooms gave a new lease of life to his brand of no-strings naughtiness. “For me, it was very simple – I would say some nice things to a girl and let things move on from there,” he told me. “Once we’re talking, I can date her; once we date, I can kiss her; once I kiss her, I can touch her boobs; and once that happens I can fuck her,” added Vietnam’s answer to Mark Antony.

As you can probably deduce by now, for all their supposed liberal outlooks and sexual empowerment, Nha Nghi hook-ups can also come hand-in-hand with a sizeable dose of misogyny. Serial sleazebags – like Hung and his peers – have been known to swap phone numbers of girls who put out (referred to as “one knots”), while Vietnam’s most popular porn website “Lauxanh” has a forum where men share photos of their conquests and rate girls’ “assets” out of ten.

As scummy as these guys are, however, on the grand moral scale they’re not too far from the middle-aged coke dispensers who stalk the shadows of Soho basement bars, and the majority of Nha Nghi users are consenting couples who just want to hook-up without attracting the scorn of society.

Of larger concern – and a common cancer of developing countries – is the lack of contraception, particularly among young people, either due to negligence or poor education. Vietnam has by far the highest rate of teen abortions in Southeast Asia and currently ranks fifth in the world for teen abortion. Incidences of STDs are thought to be equally high, but the prevalence of treatment through private doctors means the figures are difficult to quantify. According to statistics from the Ministry of Health, there were 213,400 people living with HIV in Vietnam by the end of May this year, with a high percentage suspected to be sex workers.

Trang, a 33-year-old prostitute who has worked Hanoi’s streets for ten years, services up to eight customers a day, either in Nha Nghis or public toilets for around £3 a time. “I contracted HIV from one of my clients – I don’t know who – and my health is declining,” she said. “I’d like to get out of it, but this is the only way I can afford medicine. Nha Nghis aren’t ideal, but they’re a lot safer than the streets, and most owners make sure nothing dangerous happens.”

Although previously targeted for their links to prostitution, Nha Nghis seem safe from government censure for now, with the Communist Party’s ever-morphing policies currently focused on tackling the spread of HIV. The rest houses are popular across all sections of society and most people I spoke to felt they provided a useful service for care-free couples in a country still calibrating its moral compass. But, like all vices, they are open to abuse. And while most Nha Nghi visits simply serve an itch for a daytime dalliance, some cost the vulnerable a lot more than a couple of quid.

[KangTuo]

Originally Posted by Hurricane88

Bro SS08 run awol again...

go catch him and put him in detention

[KangTuo]

Originally Posted by Honey Boon

oh .... like that we can't go cheong together liao .... :

can lah... just need to see who grap faster

[Hurricane88]

Killing Phu Quoc Island

By Calvin Godfrey October 23, 2016 | 05:36 am GMT+7

How gross economic pursuits and helter-skelter tourism boom are plundering one of Vietnam’s most precious resources.

Last month, visitors to the Mango Bay Resort on Phu Quoc Island lounged on a pristine beach dotted with tropical plants. Rivulets of fresh water carried the previous night’s rain into the sea from a lush hillside dotted with airy cabins built without televisions or air-conditioners.

In the waves below, rice sacks, plastic bags and crisp packets bobbed up and down while Mango Bay’s ground crew patrolled the sand.

An employee at the eco-resort attributed the detritus to recent storms, a new riverfront market and tour boats that periodically anchor off shore and dump their garbage overboard.

“All of the trash is from Vietnam,” he said, adding that on bad days, the entire staff drop what they’re doing to comb the shore. The resort cleans its beach a minimum of twice a day.

The effort, he said, pays off when tourists booked into other hotels turn up desperate for a clean spit of sand.

But trash isn't the only challenge at the high-end eco-resort.

A few months back, a 45-unit hotel opened on top of their shallow well.

Soon afterward, water stopped flowing. The well they’d relied upon for decades had presumably collapsed, forcing staff to dig deeper. They've since begun recycling wastewater using cisterns filled with aquatic plants.

“We’re doing everything we can to make whatever little water we have last,” the resort employee said.

Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper reported that Huynh Thanh Ha, the head of the local division of the provincial water company KIWACO, had called on tourism companies to stop exploiting underground water resources.

Mango Bay’s trash and water struggles offer but a microcosm of new stresses brought to the island by a tourism boom that seems to lack any oversight. Last month, Tuoi Tre newspaper reported that residents who once drew water from 5-10 meter wells now drill as deep as 60 meters.

When contacted by VnExpress International, Ha claimed that the newly-expanded Duong Dong Reservoir provides sufficient untreated water for residents of the island’s largest city, as well as those living in the southern town of An Thoi and the island of Bai Truong.

He declined to estimate, however, what proportion of those facilities illegally draw water from the island’s underground aquifers. He also declined to offer a picture of what those resources look like.

“We don’t have those statistics on hand,” he wrote in an email. “It would take a lot of time to inspect and gather that information.”

A plan created by the Japanese International Cooperation (JICA) envisions meeting the needs of massive resort and housing developments in the island’s North-East by building a 200-hectare (494-acre) reservoir in the national park. A consultant who oversaw preparation work for the project back in 2014 told VnExpress International he has no idea when it will be completed. The Cua Can project represents the largest of four planned reservoirs nominally slated to come into operation in as many years.

Early this year, the provincial chairman told the Saigon Times they would send a delegation to Macau (effectively a casino colony in an economic tailspin) to study their experience. He also claimed the government would simultaneously invest in wastewater treatment facilities while pushing businesses to treat their own waste.Over a decade ago, UNESCO declared Phu Quoc and over a hundred other islands in Kien Giang Province a World Biosphere Reserve -- a title that appears purely descriptive, if not confusing. At the moment, the province seems more preoccupied with pursuing an unprecedented and elusive “special economic zone” status.

To this day, Phu Quoc continues to lack a single wastewater treatment facility, so everything one flushes down the toilet ultimately ends up in the sea beyond.

Insiders say the projects have gone nowhere because the province’s sole water supplier, the Kien Giang Water Supply and Drainage Company (KIWACO), hasn't offered the right price.

Similar problems have hamstrung efforts to attract funds to process the island’s solid waste. Once buried or shipped off the island, trash now accumulates in festering mountains along the north-south corridor that runs along Phu Quoc’s eastern coast.

Developers refer to it as a “stockpile” for whatever facility does, eventually, come online.

In the meantime, you can expect it to grow.

Click here to continue reading
http://e.vnexpress.net/news/travel-l...d-3487852.html

[Hurricane88]

HCMC warns proposed budget cuts could have 'dire consequences'

By Nguyen Hoai October 23, 2016 | 11:45 am GMT+7

The city currently retains just 23 percent of its annual income, but the central government wants more.
Ho Chi Minh City officials have opposed a central government request for more of the city's income, citing the pressing need for better infrastructure.

A recent government request proposed leaving the city with just 17 percent of its annual income between 2017 and 2020 -- a five percent drop in what it currently holds.

During a meeting on Saturday, HCMC officials said they're already struggling to address major infrastructure problems like traffic and flooding and cannot afford to lose further revenue.

Municipal leaders have asked to retain at least 21 percent of the city's annual income.

Dinh La Thang, HCMC’s Party secretary, said a project to prevent flooding during heavy rains or high tides in the city, for example, will cost around VND97 trillion ($4.35 billion).

“We don’t know where to find that money yet,” he said.

While the city streets best known for their choked motorbike traffic, the skies overhead have likewise become overloaded, he said. Tan Son Nhat Airport has an annual design capacity of 25 million passengers and is expected to receive 32 million in 2016.

Ho Chi Minh City, the country’s largest metropolitan area, is one of five cities and provinces that can cover their own expenditures and contribute to the national coffers. The city took in nearly $12 billion, last year, as the country's largest moneymaker.

Nguyen Thi Quyet Tam, Ho Chi Minh City's deputy Party secretary, said they've already cut spending to the bone and would struggle with less money.

“We cannot make further cuts,” she said during the meeting adding that further cuts would compromise investments in infrastructure and social security, leading to dire consequences.

The city currently has around 12 million residents, including migrants. Every year, thousands of students flock here to attend university from across the country.

Tam described the proposed cuts as too abrupt for the city to handle.

Vietnam’s government has flaunted its own borrowing limits, in recent years.

Figures released in June showed a state budget deficit of more than VND260.14 trillion ($11.5 billion) in 2014—a figure equitvalent to 6.61 percent of the country’s gross domestic product that year. In 2013, the country's legislators set a 5.3 percent cap on debt, but the deficit amounted to roughly VND236.76 trillion, or 6.6 percent of GDP.

The country’s accumulated public debt is forecast to rise to 63.8 percent of GDP at the end of this year, and then 64.7 percent in 2018, according to the World Bank’s projections.

The country's legislature have capped accumulated debt at 65 percent.