Tieng Viet lovers club

[jackbl]

"Street Knight" identifies robbery
================================================

VietNamNet Bridge - "Knights of the street" are the way people call men who voluntarily hunt robbers on the street. Some of them are members of social or government organizations but some of them do not belong to any organization, but all of them voluntarily do this dangerous task for the peace of society. VietNamNet talks with "knight" Nguyen Van Minh Tien about robbery in HCM City.


What do you think about robbery in Ho Chi Minh City, especially in the city center and the victims who are foreign tourists?

Robbers in central Ho Chi Minh City who aiming at foreign tourists, are professional criminals.

When they hunt for victims, they are usually disguised, dressed with chic, expensive ride, so the most professional robbery hunters like the criminal forces, "street knights" are very difficult to recognize robbers.

The reason that they target foreign tourists is because they have a lot of money, jewelry, and cameras of high value.

As far as I know, recently in the city center, the criminal forces, volunteers, militias and local police patrol the street 24/7. However, bandits often take action when the police are absent, such as during the lunchtime or at midnight.

How do you identify robbers and what is your advice for people to deal with robbery crime?

Identifying robbery offenses is 50 percent based on my intuition and the remaining 50 percent are awareness of facial expressions, the psychological manifestations of the subject.

In addition to direct prevention of robbery, we also diffuse to people, taxi drivers, traders some personal experience about how to prevent robbery crime.

Everyday, I get about 10 phone calls from people to report of robbery. I can help only one or two cases because of my limited ability.

In my opinion, anyone who goes on the street with valuable assets needs to be at high alert. You should pay attention to people who often follow you, stare at you. They may sit on a motorbike or stand in front of or behind a few feet away and follow you. They can be robbers.

What are difficulties and limitations of "Knights of the street?"

Currently we do not have funding for this task. We spend all money we earn in hunting robbers and support the police.

Each day going out to "hunt" robbery, we usually go in a group of 6 people, in 3 vehicles. The cost for one day is around VND500,000 ($25) for petrol, food and drink. The expenses are not small for one month.

If we have funding, we can work from 8am to 1- 2am of the next day. Previously, my group had about 200 people, now it is less than 20 people. I'm sad and very anxious because I cannot help many people. Sometimes I wondered is it worthy to be called by people as a "Street Knight?”

What do you think when people say that you work harder than the police force and you are very popular with people?

It is not true that the police do not work positively, but they have to do a lot of work. People like "knight streets" to only hunt robbers and then give them to the police for further investigation.

We are glad that the police force is always supporting "street knights." The two sides have strong links and support. Whenever the police call me, I will be present immediately. When I hunt robbers, if I face bold robbers, I will call the police for help.

What do you think when the operation of “street knights” is beyond the government regulations? There have been cases that street knights have gone to jail after robbers died.

The "Street Knights" Club in Binh Duong province was established by the local government. Our team in Ho Chi Minh City was set up spontaneously but the Ministry of Public Security approved the establishment of the street knights club.

All people have the right to participate in the suppression of crime. When doing our task, we often catch the subjects in the act of robbery. Nobody can ban us from doing things under the policy of the Government and the State.

People occasionally catch a robbery case but we hunt robbers frequently and even are professional robbery hunters. We established the street knights group to urge the people to participate in this movement in order to repel crime.

Street knights do not cause the death of robbers. Robbers were hunted by people and street knights so they ran away at high speed and caused self-motorbike accidents. We do not shove them.

Only in cases that we catch robbers and beat them to dead we shall be subject to imprisonment.

In order to prevent robbery in Ho Chi Minh City, what anti-robber model should the government build?

It is difficult to say about models to crack down on robbery offenses because the government has the task force squad and the ward, district and city level criminal crime prevention teams.

Personally, I also proposed the Ho Chi Minh City police director to establish a "street knight club” which operates in all 24 districts to support the criminal prevention force to legally hunt robbers. If it is approved, we can work 24/7.

[jackbl]

International Relations
=====================================
For most of their wedding, Do Thi Thanh Thuy and Andrea Da Gasso followed Vietnamese tradition, lighting incense, wearing ao dai, and marching gifts over from the groom’s house.

But as for the ritual of clinking glasses at every table, Andrea didn’t want to drink that much alcohol. So his aunt brought from their native Milan what he called 'a kind of keo' — confetti, or chocolate-covered almonds that brides and grooms deliver, table by table, at Italian weddings.

Such cultural compromises began long before the nuptials and, as with so many mixed-nationality couples in Vietnam, they continue long after.

“She’s open to learn about my culture,” Andrea, 42, says of his wife, “and that’s important to me.”

Couples like Andrea and Thuy represent roughly 2 percent of marriages in Vietnam each year, according to the Ministry of Justice. Of 668,026 marriage certificates issued in 2010, for instance, 13,882 went to foreign-Vietnamese couples.

When people travel to Vietnam and fall in love with locals, the couples embark on not just long-term relationships but long-term questions about how to marry their own habits and traditions with those of their partners.

Dating the family

More than anything, Confucian obsession with filial piety can complicate romances, from day one. Gia dinh la tren het, as the Vietnamese say. Family first.

Thuy, 30, met Andrea in 2008 when he visited the art gallery she was managing, to see about displaying his photography. He teased her about pronouncing 'next week' like 'Nesquick' and asked her out. After some qualms about dating a client, she finally agreed.

But like the majority of single Vietnamese, Thuy was living with her parents, so early on, dates ended with the pair sitting outside her house. From a balcony, her mother could watch over them or shout down to them about how late it was and shouldn’t he be going?

Doru Tudose, from Bucharest, met similar suspicion when he started dating Nguyen Han in 2006.

“In the first days, when I was picking her up, her mother was looking mean, no eye contact,” Doru, 34, says.

The two have since married and opened Bootleg Cafe together. But Han, 32, explained that at the time her parents were wary of foreigners, whose time in Vietnam could be fleeting, and they didn’t think it was proper for her to go out with Doru.

But the couple didn’t have as hard a time as Sonia Watson, 29, and Nguyen Hung, 28. Raised in Paris but identifying as British like her mother, Sonia is a rare white woman to marry a Vietnamese man. Hung says the gender reversal was a problem right away, in part because his parents expected him to marry a Vietnamese who would move in with them. On the other hand, a Vietnamese woman wed to a foreigner could make a smoother transition, because custom already requires that she move out of her parents’ house. Tuoi Tre newspaper quoted government statistics in July estimating that four in five Vietnamese who marry foreigners are women.

“It’s easier for a foreign husband and Vietnamese wife, because in Asian countries the man is usually more important. So if a daughter marries a foreigner, parents think she’ll have a better life,” says Hung, who works in customer care at Lakeview Villas.

Sonia, a behavioural therapist, becomes emotional when she recalls how Hung’s parents initially ignored her. His father walked out when she brought mooncakes the first time they met; his mother continued cooking rather than respond when she announced she was pregnant.

“We had big, big fights,” Sonia says. “They wanted me out of his life and did everything they could to get me out.”

That was years ago. But a newer couple, Doan Thi Ngoc Hien and Arnaud Darras, are now facing similar resistance from the Vietnamese side.

The couple have a lot to prove to Hien’s family. Arnaud, a manager of a heating ventilation and air conditioning company, is from Bordeaux but met Hien online in January, and they got married here in August. While talking with AsiaLIFE at a restaurant downtown, Hien feeds Arnaud ice cream and describes how her family urges her to marry rich, especially because they are well-off already.

Arnaud, 40, says Hien’s brother wanted to set her up with one of his wealthy friends.

“Later, when he sees we’re happy, we have a child, we’re still married, they will think, ‘He’s a good guy, we can accept him,’” Arnaud says, lacing his fingers around Hien’s. “But for now, I know it’s not the case.”

Hien, 28 and a sales manager at a shipping company, is adamant her family will have to come around.

But in the beginning, some choose not to deal with their families. That is, they lie. It’s common enough for women to date by telling parents they’re going out with friends. Thuy took it a step further, spending a weekend with Andrea on Phu Quoc island. What did her parents think she was doing? Surveying a client hotel for her art gallery.

“They don’t agree with me to go overnight with a man, but I follow my heart,” she says, sitting cross-legged on the floor at home with that man, whom she affectionately calls Heo, Pig.

On the island, they booked separate rooms, hers with a balcony from which she could listen to his guitar serenade. They grilled seafood on the beach and had their first kiss.
Hung made up a different story to stay with Sonia for a week. He came down with chickenpox after they met and told his parents he would go to a friend’s so the family wouldn’t catch it.

Tilting at stereotypes

Thuy says she trusts Andrea, with whom she shares a photography business out of their house in Binh Thanh District. But during the courtship, she kept an ear to friends who warned that when it comes to Vietnamese, westerners love them and leave them. And sometimes, leave them pregnant. When Thuy and Andrea finally visited Milan together, she went in part to check he didn’t have another wife and children in Italy.

The stereotypes cut both ways, says Doan Thi Ngoc, an instructor at Hoa Sen University’s Gender and Society Research Centre. Vietnamese women who walk down the street with western men can be seen as prostituting themselves or marrying for money and a passport, she says.

But Ngoc has found that people opened their minds as Vietnam opened its doors economically and socially. More tourism, wealth, business links, exposure to pop culture, and intermarriage, have meant that “attitudes can be more open,” she says.

Integration

In the case of intermarriage, Vietnamese families tend to open up to foreigners not just because they stick around, but because they adapt.

The process begins with le phep, deference to parents, from learning to address them respectfully, to having them over or visiting at least once a week. Andrea remembers one meal when he began eating before Thuy’s parents — a faux pas in Vietnamese culture, which dictates that younger generations invite older ones to eat first.

But few changes have a larger impact on the dynamics of relationships than a foreigner’s decision to take up Vietnamese.

“I want to learn everything,” says Arnaud, adding that Hien will teach him Vietnamese.

“You cannot understand the way of life of a country without learning the language.”

That’s still a work-in-progress for Adam Schofield, from Manchester, and Le Thi Ngo Nhien. Since his studying has dropped off, Adam is more likely to use his language CD during a DJ gig than a Vietnamese lesson. Red tape has stalled their marital plans, but the two have a 1-year-old son, and Adam says he’ll probably try learning Vietnamese again when his son does.

Sonia studied Vietnamese for a few years and says she’s grateful to participate during festivities, such as wishing her in-laws good health and longevity. But she and Hung generally lapse into English, which Ngoc, the university instructor, says reflects a 40-60 balance between Vietnamese and westerners.

“Just in my own opinion, still one side is dominant,” Ngoc says. “Vietnamese usually have to follow other cultures, but they enjoy that culture, too.”

The language barrier intrudes most obviously when husbands and wives can't communicate with their in-laws, or even pronounce each other's names correctly.

English is but one symptom of how far western influence has spread, but that makes it a more widely useful language than Vietnamese.

Partly for that reason and to keep a vacation-like barrier between him and the country, Doru, the Romanian, chooses never to adopt Vietnamese. Though Han wants him to learn, Doru is blunt in his refusal. Just as he never acquired a taste for local cuisine, Doru thinks no one has to change his ways for others. Yet he admits, “When we chose that she would learn English, subliminally, we were choosing to live on my terms.”


To be continue.........

[jackbl]

Continued from above.........

Gender divide

Han makes the compromise, reasoning that living on western terms is to her benefit.

Wearing a white lace dress and heavy bangs, she says during an interview at her bar-cafe that the arrangement puts her on a more equal footing with Doru.

“Vietnamese men want us to be traditional, clean the house, cook, take care of the kids,” she says in Vietnamese. On the other hand, if she washes clothes, Doru dries them. If she cooks, he washes dishes. Not that she likes to cook.

She writes off Vietnamese men as selfish and jealous, but Vietnamese women own up to their spars with the green-eyed monster, too. Chalk it up to a society that leaves little room for friendships with the other sex, particularly after marriage.

Adam, 33, and Nhien, 27, have trouble finding middle ground here. They’re butterflies in a social scene ripe for jealousy because they like to DJ at clubs. Across from the altar in their parlour at home is a corner turntable. She sees less nightlife now their son Lucajay is in the picture, while Adam continues to work, which he says requires him to be, in a word, friendly. Still, Adam tries to curb the flirting, and Nhien tries to overlook his habit of calling people ‘darling’ and ‘love’.

“Women always want to be number one,” she says. “If he just hugs anybody, I feel like I’m the same as them, I’m nothing special.”

Sonia doesn’t worry so much about jealousy or infidelity. Friends had warned her of those problems among Vietnamese men, who they said drank, expected to be waited on, and hit their wives. Those formed an image that Sonia says turned her white girlfriends off from Asians. It doesn’t help that Asian males defy a somewhat western construct that they must be bigger and taller than females (Sonia notes that she’s taller than Hung). If dating sites are any indication, Asian men are some of the least successful pursuers, according to a 2009 study published in Social Science Research.

Asian women ranked among the most sought-after.

But Sonia has been attracted to Asian men most her life, while she considers herself nothing like traditional Asian women.

“I complain a lot,” she says, before turning to her husband in the living room of their District 7 apartment. “Your life would be easier with a Vietnamese wife.”

He considers. “You make me think about it.”

“Admit it, you know it’s true,” she says. “You’d live with your parents, you’d come home and everything would be done.”

Hung turns back to the interview, joking, “She wants me to get a Vietnamese wife.”

Bringing up baby

As couples go about welding their two worlds, no issue complicates the process more than the question of children. Hien and Arnaud want to conceive this month, while Andrea and Doru each need some convincing from their wives.

Those with children must then decide on a bevy of compromises. Will they keep the newborn inside the house until the first-month celebration? What will they feed the baby? For education, will they enroll in a Vietnamese school, pay five figures for an international program, or move to the foreign spouse’s home country?

Despite the challenges, parents say having children has smoothed the welding process. At first, Nhien earned her mother and father’s disapproval by drinking and going out late with Adam.

“But they’re happier now that I settled down and have a stable family,” she says.
For Hung and Sonia, 2-year-old Tam has made all the difference. When she became pregnant, they got not a single 'congratulations' from Hung’s parents, who harbored something verging on contempt for her.

Over the months, some of the animosity subsided and his mother even began to smile.

“The bigger I got, the more they realised, this is really happening,” Sonia says, before her son interrupts to ask for an explanation. He is holding a book, pointing to a picture of milk.

The day he was born, Tam’s paternal grandparents transformed completely. They spent the day at the hospital, tending to Sonia and cradling their hours-old grandson. It was as if they had always gotten along, and they never looked back.

While selecting a name, Sonia and Hung considered Tam, which means 'heart' when topped with a hat-shaped accent marker. But her mother observed that in Scotland, where she grew up, the name also means 'Tom'. So they opted to forgo the marker, leaving their son with a Vietnamese heart, and a western one, too.

[yummyymym]

Can anyone help me on this

Da thuc toi gio roi

Dun quite understand though I know it is stating a time

Was (thuc toi) time already

[jackbl]

Originally Posted by yummyymym

Da thuc toi gio roi

Dun quite understand though I know it is stating a time

Was (thuc toi) time already

You asked her something, she replied to your question, so it is related to the Q u asked..... What u asked her???????? Think from this direction...

[V|ernar]

Originally Posted by jackbl

Are u talking about yourself? They dunno but I know your history. Hehe

he come here blow balloon ~!

[V|ernar]

Originally Posted by yummyymym

Can anyone help me on this

Da thuc toi gio roi

Dun quite understand though I know it is stating a time

Was (thuc toi) time already

wow , this girl got good manner ~!

[Honey Boon]

where have you been these days?

Originally Posted by V|ernar

he come here blow balloon ~!

[vietboy]

Originally Posted by jackbl

You asked her something, she replied to your question, so it is related to the Q u asked..... What u asked her???????? Think from this direction...

no context, can be anything...

[jackbl]

The Vietnamese “hot teachers”
=================================================

VietNamNet Bridge – Students nowadays idolize the teachers who are young, beautiful, talented and have their special characters which make them outstanding from others.

It seems that the “taste” of students has changed a lot. In the past, respectfulness was the only sentiment students thought they needed to have to teachers. Students always needed to observe etiquette and lower their heads before the teachers.

Nowadays, students can be closer to teachers, communicate with them and talk about the topics of mutual interest as the friends of the same ranks and ages. Students nowadays not only respect teachers, but admire them and love them as well.

In the past, the most famous teachers were the respectful old teachers, who devoted themselves to the education. Nowadays, the most famous teachers are the young and beautiful, talented and modern ones.

Phan Hong Anh, a mathematics teacher of the Hanoi-Amsterdam High School for the Gifted, the most famous school in Hanoi which gathers the best students of the city, has become well know to every student as a hot girl and “hot teacher.”

The young teacher, born in 1991, has caught the special attention from students since the first day at the school as a teacher, for many reasons. First, she is a beauty, who was the runner-up at the Imiss Thang Long 2010 beauty contest. Second, she was an excellent student of the Hanoi-Amsterdam High School for the Gifted, majoring in mathematics and famous for good learning records.

Especially, Anh was an excellent student of the Hanoi University of Education, graduating from the training course specifically designed for talented students.

Anh has very good communication skills, which explains why students love her. The images about the young, beautiful, communicative and talented teacher have been updated on the school’s website regularly and on many other websites.

The students of the Phan Dinh Phung High School now have a common idol: history teacher Le Thi My Dung.

Dung is now so famous that every student knows her and would be ready to answer the questions about her. Dung is beloved by thousands of students because she always gives straight answers, because she is friendly and has high sense of humor.

Especially, a Dung’s fan club has been organized by the students of the Phan Dinh Phung school. The club gathers the students who love the teachers’ characteristics and regularly meet each other to discuss about the lovely teacher.

Van Trang, the administrator of the fanpage, said she created the website to show her sentiment to the teacher, adding that the fanpage has got 2100 likes since the opening.

While all other Vietnamese students complain that they get tired of the history lessons, the students of the Phan Dinh Phung High School find history lessons the most interesting hours at school.

They said with history lessons, they do not have to learn the events by hearts in a mechanical way, while they can remember all events and information easily, because Dung always gives interesting examples and show the links between the events and the happenings.

The most important “teaching know-how” of Dung is the sense of humor and the good understanding about students.

Newspapers in recent days repeatedly have reported the stories about the hot girls and hot boys, who have obtained big achievements at the beauty contests or talent competitions.

Meanwhile, the hot boys and hot girls have been well known to students for a long time already, because the hot boys and hot girls are also the teachers.

Before Vo Trong Phuc became famous as a singer attending the Vietnam’s Got Talent reality TV show, Phuc had been well known to students as a handsome English teacher of the international English school Elite.

Compiled by C. V

[SING_IN_HCMC]

=================================================

VietNamNet Bridge – Students nowadays idolize the teachers who are young, beautiful, talented and have their special characters which make them outstanding from others.

XXX

Phan Hong Anh, a mathematics teacher of the Hanoi-Amsterdam High School for the Gifted, the most famous school in Hanoi which gathers the best students of the city, has become well know to every student as a hot girl and “hot teacher.”

The young teacher, born in 1991, has caught the special attention from students since the first day at the school as a teacher, for many reasons. First, she is a beauty, who was the runner-up at the Imiss Thang Long 2010 beauty contest. Second, she was an excellent student of the Hanoi-Amsterdam High School for the Gifted, majoring in mathematics and famous for good learning records.

Especially, Anh was an excellent student of the Hanoi University of Education, graduating from the training course specifically designed for talented students.

Anh has very good communication skills, which explains why students love her. The images about the young, beautiful, communicative and talented teacher have been updated on the school’s website regularly and on many other websites.



Compiled by C. V[/QUOTE]


Anh JB, Phan Hong Anh is this one in the middle in white ao dai:
http://

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images...3535honga.jpg/

[jackbl]

The story behind super-slim houses
================================================== ==
Slim houses, which are often less than 1 or 2m in frontal width, come into being after their original full-sized versions are partially demolished to make way for road expansion projects. Their remains are then renovated, and in some cases when space was lacking, expanded upwards.

The capital, Hanoi, and southern hub of Ho Chi Minh City are the cities packed with the most super-thin houses. According to Phap Luat newspaper, the number of super-slim houses in Hanoi has reached more than 664, and that number is estimatedexpected to be even higher in HCMC.

Featured in Sai Gon Giai Phong newspaper, the laundry shop T & T on Huynh Van Banh street, Binh Thanh district, which covers less than 1m in frontal width, is always packed with customers. The weirdly small size of the shop and the sense of danger does not stop its customers from coming.

In the same area similarly super-slim, weirdly shaped houses can be easily spotted.

Some are long and flat with one end curved like a ship, while others are shaped like a tiny triangle.

Such flat houses can also be found on the cleared zones of the Tan Son Nhat – Binh Loi – Vanh Dai Ngoai road construction project.

According to Sai Gon Giai Phong newspaper, Tan Son Nhat – Binh Loi street is planned to become one of the city’s artery streets. Therefore, a plot of land on the street front, however small it is, is worth a fortune.

Such houses are not a rare sight in other areas of the city.

Lining the streets along the section of the Tan Hoa – Lo Gom canal which crosses District 6 are a multitude of super-slim houses which have sprouted up at a pace faster than that of the canal renovation project.

Among them is an ‘awe-inspiring’ house that is only around 1m wide and looks just like an upright, two-storey concrete cylinder.

“I’m even too scared to seek shelter from rain in this house, let alone live in it. It can collapse anytime in strong gusts of winds,” Sai Gon Tiep Thi quoted Ngo Thien Tri, a local retired civil servant, as saying.

H.H, who owns a super-thin house in an alley of Hau Giang street, says that as the Tan Hoa – Lo Gom canal upgrade project got underway, most of her siblings’ houses were cleared entirely, while H. was fortunate enough to have around 13m2 of her house left.

“We first planned to sell this leftover plot to the project but the compensation rate - VND 18.5 million ($US 898) per m2 - was not enough to buy a house from the relocation program, so we had no choice but to keep this house for accommodation,” H. explained.

She added that the relocated area was too far from the city center, and would have made it really difficult for her children to go to school and for her and her husband to make a living, she added.

One of her siblings had his plot entirely cleared for construction and received a compensation sum totaling VND450 million ($US 21,846).

He took his family to neighboring Long An province and bought a quite large plot and built a house for more than VND 500 million ($US 24,273).

H. said her super-slim house can be easily leased for no less than VND 5 million ($US 243) per month, but her family chooses to live there for convenience.

She said with her four family members crammed into the tiny space, she had no choice but to take the risk.


Causes and solutions

The emergence of super – slim houses can be attributed to several causes.

As regulated by laws, houses can be cleared to the road marker only. Therefore, the remaining plot, however small it is, still belongs to the house owner.

“HCMC officials have never allowed such houses to be built. Laws on site clearance and compensation stipulate that residents cannot build houses on plots whose sizes are smaller than regulated. They are encouraged to sell these leftover plots to the government or their neighbors, Sai Gon Giai Phong quotes Tran Minh Tho, head of Binh Thanh District’s Site Clearance and Compensation Board as saying.

Meanwhile, as Phap Luat newspaper reported, dozens of flat houses in Binh Tan district’s Binh Hung Hoa B ward were indeed granted permission to be built.

If the local residents voluntarily give up their houses to the government for road expansion projects without receiving compensation, they will be granted permits to build on their leftover plots, explained Vo Thanh Son, chair of the Binh Hung Hoa B Ward’s People’s Committee.

Son also added that allowing these house owners to build flat houses on their remaining plots is reasonable in reconciling both the government’s and locals’ interests. Otherwise, locals will not hand over their lands voluntarily, affecting road expansion project progress.

According to Vu Thanh Hai, vice chief construction inspector of Go Vap district, the Tan Son Nhat – Binh Loi – Vanh Dai Ngoai road expansion project affects approximately 1,200 houses in the district, Phap Luat reported.

Sai Gon Tiep Thi quoted architect Nguyen Tien Thanh, dean of the Architecture Faculty of Binh Duong province’s Thu Dau Mot University, as saying that in order to both ensure architectural harmony and the interests of home owners, “there must be detailed masterplans in the first place, featuring specific regulations on construction density, number of stories, areas, etc.”

After site clearance, the houses that fail to meet construction standards need to be radically dealt with first, before the construction of the roads along the canal is completed, he added.

“These shortcomings may be due to insufficient investment capital, or the ‘ignorance’ of the project implementers and censors,” Thanh concluded.

According to architect Le Quang Ninh, the remains of the houses which measure less than 30m2 should be considered on a case-by-case basis regarding their location, among other factors, Sai Gon Tiep Thi reported.

“If they don’t violate any regulations, their owners should be granted permission to have them rebuilt. This should be treated with flexibility,” Ninh elaborated.

“In my opinion, after clearance, the remains of the houses measuring less than 30m2 should be confiscated by the government to expand public space,” Ninh added.

[jackbl]

HCM City: Public sale of fake number plates
================================================== ========
VietNamNet Bridge - Fake number plates have been sold publicly along many roads in HCM City for years but the authorities have not paid attention to it.


With only VND70,000-VND90,000 dong ($3-4), anyone can have a fake number plate. To get a nice number plate, with embossed and reflected emblem, one has to pay only VND350,000 ($17) (five digit plate) or VND400,000 - 600,000 ($20-30) (four-digit plate).

Hong Bang Street, the section from Ong Buong Bridge to Phu Lam rotation, is the most famous "fake number plate market" in Ho Chi Minh City. The road is more than 1 km long, but there are nearly 10 fake number plate making enterprises.

On the afternoon of July 31, correspondents dropped in a fake license plate making enterprise in Ward 14, District 6, which was ran by a young man of about 25 years old. The man said that the price is VND70,000 ($3.5) for a normal number plate and VND350,000 ($17) for a nice place number.

Asking him about the number plate with the national emblem, he said: "To have the national emblem, the price will be higher, VND400,000 ($20) for a four-digit plate and VND350,000 for a 5-digit plate. Fake plates just like the real ones, but be careful."

Correspondents visited another fake number plate shop which is right in front of the headquarters of the Quarter 2 administration, Ward 12, District 6. A woman said the price is VND130,000 ($6) for all kind of plates. She asked customers to deposit VND100,000 and told them to come back tomorrow to receive the plate.

The next days, correspondents returned to this place to take the fake number plate, which looked similar to an authentic plate.

On August 2, correspondents visited another fake number plate selling point on Vo Van Ngan road, Thu Duc District. A man offered: "Normal plate is priced VND70,000, being delivered tomorrow. If you want a plate with the national emblem, the price is VND600,000 ($30), available in one week. "

Law violations

Talking with fake number plate sellers, correspondents found out that the majority of fake license plate buyers are illegal racers, those who use illegally imported or stolen vehicles or the people who use vehicles for illegal acts.

Lawyer Do Hai Binh (Ho Chi Minh City Bar Association) said that producing fake number plates may be charged of production, storage, transport, trafficking of prohibited goods, under Article 155, the Penal Code. Violators face administrative penalty or a prison term of three to 15 years.

However, this article is only applied to those who produce or sell fake number plates marked with the emblem. Those who use fake number plates can be fined or their vehicles may be seized, Binh said.

NLD

[jackbl]

Tết Trung Thu Vui Vẻ. Am Áp Tinh Thần.

[jackbl]

40 – Probably, perhaps – hình như, có lẽ, chắc
================================================== =============
There are 3 words you can use to describe a possibility (probably, perhaps, maybe, it seems): hình như, có lẽ, chắc. You can put them at the beginning of a sentence or before the verb

Hình như / có lẽ / chắc + sentence (+ thì phải)

Subject + hình như / có lẽ / chắc + verb + object (+ thì phải)

hình như ngày mai trời mưa?
probably tomorrow sky rains?
it seems to be raining tomorrow?


Ừ nếu trời mưa thì có lẽ chúng mình phải hủy cuộc hẹn ngày mai
uh, if sky rain then maybe we have to cancel the meeting tomorrow
uh, if it rains then maybe we have to cancel the meeting tomorrow


Đừng lo, chắc trời không mưa đâu!
Don’t worry, probably sky not rain
Don’t worry! It may not rain.


You can add thì phải at the end of the sentence without affecting the meaning.

Anh Long hình như là người Sài Gòn phải không?
(he) Long probably to be person Sài Gòn isn’t it?
Long is probably (a person) from Sài Gòn, isn’t he?

Không, anh ấy hình như là người Long An thì phải
No he probably to be person Long An
No, he seems to be from Long An


You can also add là after hình như, có lẽ, chắc without changing the meaning. In this case, là is just a filler word (it doesn’t mean “to be”).

Chắc là chị ấy lỡ tàu nên giờ này vẫn chưa về đến nhà
Probably she miss the train so hour this still not return at home
She probably missed the train so she still hasn’t gotten home at this hour.