Tran Bang Viet.

VietNamNet – In most people’s minds, the war is Vietnam’s predominant image. Not many have a clue about the Vietnam of today. 

“When I was in North America in 2000, I frequently asked my Canadian friends if they knew anything about Vietnam. They looked at each other and answered me with a smile: “Vietnam won the war against America”. But that was all they knew about my country,” said Tran Bang Viet. 

“However, the answer to the question ‘where is Vietnam?’ never satisfied me,” Viet wrote in his blog. This inspired him to launch his own blog aimed at building up Vietnam’s image. In his blog, Viet used the nickname of Dr Neo, and it has received 8,000 visitors and nearly 70 responses to his topics. 

He wrote: “In 2003 and 2004, in a small hotel in Boston, I saw advertisements on TV of a beautiful “truly Asia” Malaysia, a Korea with special culture, a multi-cultural Singapore and an impressive Thailand – the question came to my mind, why couldn’t we do that?” 

I asked my colleague about Vietnam; the replies were restricted to the Vietnam War, bird flu and SARS. Some stories like WTO membership for Vietnam or the anti-dumping catfish lawsuit, which are important for Vietnam, receive no attention from the American public. 

“We should do something for a better image of Vietnam in international eyes,” Viet wrote about the reason why he wanted to launch the blog. 

Bang Viet is the project manager of EPG Head, TMA Software Solutions Company. Bang Viet talked to the press about his plan. 

How did the idea of building Vietnam’s image come to you? 

I was inspired with the idea when I saw a slideshow introducing India. It was not too complicatedly designed but had all the information about the country. I think it is an effective way of advertising the country. Why don’t we do that for Vietnam? The idea came up and I wrote about it in my blog calling for support from other people to give their hands to do the job. 

So what are you going to do to change foreigners’ views of Vietnam? 

There will be three stages of the plan’s implementation and assignments will be given to different groups.

In the first stage, data will be collected from four sources – the General Statistics Office, the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism, Lonely Planet and the World Fact Book – in order to identify what Vietnam wants to show international people. After information is sorted, we will consult experts on the issues to ensure that all information is well presented. 

In the second stage, we would like to disseminate information to people within Vietnam and in other countries. In order to do this, cooperation with the media would be ideal. Then we will start a website which will provide updated, correct and adequate information on Vietnam. 

But in order to do this successfully we need to get more attention from society as a good image of Vietnam could only be made by all Vietnamese people. Therefore the third stage is to advertise for the objectives and call for efforts from people from all walks of life. 

Previously, several groups planned to advertise Vietnam’s image through websites but the results were not as expected. What do you think about this? 

Motivation and finances are two important factors in implementing the plan. These groups had problems with these two things so they failed to put the plans forward, I guess. 

One of our strengths is a large number of youngsters from all over the world with different educational levels who wish to make this happen. We will set up a taskforce comprising members with high educations (two have doctor degrees, four have master’s degrees and many others have bachelor’s degrees) from schools in Vietnam or other countries such as Singapore, the US, Britain, Australia and so on. They will work closely with each other to implement the plan.  

(Source: Tuoi Tre)