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Vietnam soap opera set to be a big hit
Here's an update on the Vietnamese soap opera series which addresses
HIV/AIDS for the first time. As suspected, it still overlooks the
gay component of the situation.
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Subject: Vietnam soap opera set to be a big hit
Date: Tue, 4 Feb 1997 9:42:00 PST
HANOI, Vietnam (Reuter) - It may never be up there in the
ratings with ``Dallas'' and ``Baywatch,'' but Vietnam's
first-ever television soap opera looks set to be a hit at home.
A 30-part story of four generations laced with humor,
suspense and tragedy, ``Wind Blows Through Dark and Light'' has
been trumpeted in local newspapers as a roaring success even
before it goes on air.
That may have more than a little to do with the government,
which is just as keen on the soap's popular entertainment value
as its didactic potential.
``Wind Blows Through Dark and Light'' is not about HIV, the
virus which leads to AIDS.
But it has a few hard-hitting messages about the deadly
disease which its 15 million-plus viewers -- be they in cities,
farming communities or remote mountain villages -- would find
hard to miss.
``This... is not about preaching, it's not about hitting
people over the head,'' says Brian Doolan, country director of
the aid group Care International, which has helped produce the
European Commission-backed show.
``It's about subtly introducing some messages but in the
midst of an entertaining television series. Basically we're
entertaining and there is a message in there if people want to
hear it.''
Dreams of owning a car or an automatic washing machine are,
for most of Vietnam's 77 million people, just that -- dreams.
But, poverty notwithstanding, the vast majority now has access
to a television.
The communist government, an old hand at mass propaganda,
has not been slow to grasp that opportunity in its bid to
bolster public awareness of HIV/AIDS and encourage safe sex.
Cheery TV ads to promote condom use, a difficult subject in
a nation where sexual matters are rarely discussed in public,
have been followed more recently by sinister ones which work on
fear.
The non-profit humanitarian group DKT International, which
works with the government on the adverts, says the message is
getting through.
``Now there is a brand awareness that there never used to
be,'' says DKT's Project Director Andrew Piller. ``That gives
people a handle to talk about condoms without having to say
'condom.'''
Over 30 million condoms were sold nationwide last year, more
than in the three previous years put together. That is a
breakthrough for a country which, although no Thailand, has
become one of the region's biggest AIDS victims.
According to official government data, compiled from police
records and death certificates, less than 5,000 cases of
HIV/AIDS have been recorded.
United Nations AIDS experts in Hanoi believe that figure is
unreliable. They say the number of HIV cases in Vietnam is
already 60,000, will rise to around 100,000 by the end of this
year and hit 350,000 by 2000.
There are two main AIDS epidemics in Vietnam -- the first is
among male drug users in Ho Chi Minh City and the second is
among prostitutes in the western Mekong Delta who do brisk
business across the border in Cambodia.
Despite its questionable figures, the government is not
denying the seriousness of its AIDS problem.
In the first few years of its official AIDS campaign, from
1990 to 1993, the government focused on jailing people involved
in the sex trade and drug abusers.
Some AIDS committee officials now recognise that this
approach may have been counterproductive.
Instead of encouraging behavior change, it drove intravenous
drug users underground where HIV could spread silently through
the sharing of contaminated needles.
Now the thrust of the campaign has changed.
Every town in the country has its own forest of billboards
which still fume against drug abuse and prostitution. But, like
the television ads and now the soap opera, they also tackle a
widely held belief that dirty needles and the sex trade are the
only ways to catch AIDS.
One of the main characters in ``Wind Blows Through Dark and
Light,'' a trucker who has had many sexual encounters on his
travels, falls in love with a woman back at home. Before their
relationship can blossom, it emerges that he is HIV positive.
Le Tuan Anh, the series' dashing lead actor and already
something of a celebrity, says the soap will encourage sympathy
rather than the disgust usually reserved for AIDS victims.
``This program does not criticize AIDS patients, it
expresses sympathy for them,'' he says. ``They are young, but
they have lost their youth, their careers, everything. We feel
sorry for them, we don't hate them.''
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