All the news circulating about Đồng Tâm has been difficult to understand. There has been little to no information released, and on top of that, the government has barred all independent media from entering the area, leaving state media and social media as the main sources of information. The Loa team got together to make sense of what went down. Here's what we have.
Five Stories to Know for January
Ghost in the Sea: A Tale of Escape
Many believe that countries torn by conflict are inhabited by the spirits of those whose lives were lost. In the case of Việt Nam, the war spread beyond land and into the sea, as hundreds of thousands of people fled the country by boat after the war. For our next story, we hear an eerie tale of loss during an attempt to vượt biên -- escape the country by boat. Chris Lê has more.
A Fortune Teller Tells Her Secrets
From assessing the compatibility of a couple using the zodiac calendar, to the way furniture is arranged in your living room, to visiting fortune tellers to determine the most suitable date for a wedding, Vietnamese people attach great importance to a practice that other people regard with skepticism.
What is it that makes receiving advice from a fortune teller a widely accepted custom in Vietnamese culture? Chris Lê explores this idea in this week’s A Look Inside.
In the Market for Love
A Lookback at Loa in 2015
Việt Tân: An Opposition Party Aims to Reform Việt Nam
Resistance to oppression is in the Vietnamese people’s DNA. Since the Vietnamese Communist Party imposed its one-party rule throughout the country in 1975, resistance has been building. Momentum started with the isolated voices of dissidents in the 1980s and 1990s and has gained to give rise to the emergence of un-sanctioned groups today.
Việt Tân, the Việt Nam Reform Party, is one of those un-sanctioned groups. It was formally established in 1982 with a mission to mobilize the people to reform and free Việt Nam. From its perilous beginnings to today’s multi-pronged approaches to empower the Vietnamese people - of which Loa is a product - Chris Lê has the story of the activists on the ground.
