Please Dial "3"

This month, the local, which is to say, national, which is to say *only*, landline telephone company, Vietnam Posts and Telecom (VNPT), announced a change in all landline phone numbers.  

In HCMC and Hanoi, all landline numbers now grow from 7 digits to 8 digits.  Plus the two digit city code.  In the outlying provinces that used to have 6 digit numbers, they also grow by one to 7 digits.  While provinces that got recently "upgraded" to 7 digits stay at 7.

For all of HCMC and Hanoi numbers, you now add a leading "3" to the old numbers to create the new 8 digit telephone number.    

A lot of business here, even more than in the US, is conducted via mobile phones.  With no wide acceptance of voicemail, folks carry multiple cell phones.  But still a lot of folks, like us for instance, will be affected by this new landline number change.

And this change is idiotic.  The more reasonable way to go about things is to add an area code "overlay," and not to simply lengthen numbers.  Split HCMC and Hanoi into new area codes, instead of just maintaining one city code.  My hometown has four new overlay area codes since the time of my childhood - and my childhood home number didn't change for 25 years until we sold the joint and moved.  

This new VNPT edict will just create business for the print shops, because now all our business literature - business cards, letterheads, envelopes, marketing materials, etc., etc. - will need to be redone.  Arrgghhh.

And given that short term memory is about 7+/- 2 digits*, as I remember from Psych 101, these new 8-digit phone numbers will start messing with your head.  Mobile numbers in Vietnam are at least 8 digits long, plus at least a two digit mobile provider code.  No one can remember these long assed numbers, that's why people buy and peddle "so dep" - pretty numbers.  One buys a nice and pretty mobile number just to have a number that can be remembered.  

After two years, I've finally been able to memorize my own mobile number!            

* this magical 7+/- 2 standard was put forth in a 1956 paper, since then, and my time in the lecture hall, new research has suggested that we can remember 2 seconds worth of spoken content.  For English speakers, this would be 7 plus or minus 2 digits, depending on how quickly one normally speaks.  For Chinese speakers, the number of digits recallable in short term memory is closer to 10, because the words are shorter.  My impression is that the Vietnamese speak slowly and they'll be closer to the 7+/-2 measure.     

Unikey Help

Here's the text of the Unikey Help post on the blog Down and Out in Saigon. I've copied it here in case that blog is decommissioned and the information is lost.

I recommend that you use a Vietnamese keyboard or keyboard driver for the task. Despite their name, they are not hardware: they are small programs that sit in your OS and convert your keystrokes into nice, lovely Vietnamese. And do I have a particular program in mind? Boy howdy, I do: Unikey. I've used it for about a year and a half without complaint. I like it so much that I've shut off rival keyboard drivers running on the same machine. The advantages of it are:

• It's free. Nice to know, isn't it?
• It's just a download away: for NT/2000/XP, for 95/98/MEor for Linux.
• Installation is simple: just unzip it and it is ready to go.
• It lacks bloat. It's a small program that does what it is does without any unnecessary feature.
• It sits on the taskbar. This makes it easy to switch between "English" mode and "Vietnamese" mode: just click on the icon on the taskbar.
• The user interface actually provides for English speakers, which makes it easier to understand.

(Of course, if you aren't happy with Unikey, you could look for other utilities. Look at the Vietnamese Unicode FAQs for more information. But rather than comparing all the utilities, I want one that works for me.)

Setup

When you start up Unikey, you see the following dialogue:

What does it all mean? Fortunately, you can find out what is happening by clicking on the "Mở rộng" button. "Mở rộng" means expand, and that's what you need to do.

See the checkbox with "Vietnamese interface"? Uncheck it. The whole interface will turn into English:

That makes it a lot easier to use, doesn't it? Okay, here's what I recommend you do:

• I recommend you always set the "Character Set" to Unicode - always. A character set is basically how characters like "ư" and "a" are represented as numbers that computers can handle. The Microsoft Office utilities and Blogger are set to handle Unicode by default. Unicode is an international standard, so you can't go much wrong with it. The only exception to this is if you have the misfortune to use one of the old VNI Fonts from years ago. But Unicode - good.
• The "Input method" is what keystrokes will form a character like "ư". I prefer TELEX, but I will give instructions for using Unikey with VNI and VIQR as well. See the next section for instructions.
• Advanced options: uncheck them all. Especially uncheck the "Use oa', uy' (instead of o'a, u'y)". This is an irritating preset that doesn't allow you to write "hoà"; instead it alwayscomes out as "hòa". You don't want that.
• There's also the "Help" button - which provides you "Help" in Vietnamese. If you understand Vietnamese, it's nice to look at. If you don't, it's not of much assistance. Anyway, that's what this document is here for, isn't it?
• Finally, there's "Auto-run UniKey at boot time". If it's your machine, I see no problem with it. If it's someone else's, then I advise against it.

Then click on "Close". The program will now sit on the taskbar - unobtrusive, yet available. If you see a big "V":

That means that it is set up to enter Vietnamese. But if you want to enter pure English, just click on the "V" and you will see:

It's easy to toggle from one to another: left-click on the letter. And if you want to remove the program altogether: right-click on the letter, and on the resulting menu, click "exit".

Okay, now that it is running: what do I do? Reading the next section is a good way to start...

Input Methods

The idea of a keyboard driver is that it makes it easy to enter desired characters using the keyboard you have. UniKey doesn't even assume you have the "Alt" or "Ctrl" buttons. Instead, you press a combination of letters that tend to follow the following order:

• If you want characters without diacritics, like "a", "b", or "c", then type them.
• If you want characters with diacritics but no tone markers, then type the combination. For example "dd" in TELEX will create a "đ", and "ow" will create a "ơ".
• Always add the tone afterwards.

The following table gives the combinations for all the Vietnamese characters in lower case. If you want upper case, then use upper case letters instead. For example, "DD" in TELEX will create "Đ", and so on. Here are the tables:

Desired letter	TELEX	VNI	VIQR
â	Type "aa"	Type "a6"	Type "a^"
ă	Type "aw"	Type "a8"	Type "a("
đ	Type "dd"	Type "d9"	Type "dd"
ê	Type "ee"	Type "e6"	Type "e^"
ô	Type "oo"	Type "o6"	Type "o^"
ơ	Type "ow"	Type "o7"	Type "o+"
ư	Type "w" or "uw"	Type "u7"	Type "u+"
Add a "dấu Sắc"	Type a "s"	Type "1"	Type single quote "'"
Add a "dấu Huyền"	Type a "f"	Type "2"	Type reverse quote "`"
Add a "dấu Hỏi"	Type a "r"	Type "3"	Type "?"
Add a "dấu Ngã"	Type a "x"	Type "4"	Type tilde "~"
Add a "dấu Nặng"	Type a "j"	Type "5"	Type period "."
Remove tone	Type a "z"	Type "0"	Type "0"

To understand this, I will provide some examples:

To Type	TELEX	VNI	VIQR
Hai Bà Trưng	Type "Hai Baf Trwng"	"Hai Ba1 Tru7ng"	"Hai Ba` Tru+ng"
Tiếng Việt	Type "Tieesng Vieejt"	Type "Tie61ng Vie65t"	Type "Tie^'ng Vie^.t"
ĐƯỜNG	Type "DDWOWFNG"	Type "D9U7O72NG"	Type "DDU+O+`NG"

Yes, it all seems a little tedious to learn. So choose one of the methods, and practice. I admit you may need a good motivation to do this. My motivations were (a) learning Vietnamese, and (b) retyping the names of Vietnamese students that had been provided sans diacritics.

Conclusion

What I've tried to do her is set up a tutorial for those unfamiliar with Vietnamese, and also unfamiliar with computers. Alot of this was learnt from consulting the original Vietnamese documentation, and also a lot of practice. Now if you are interested, practice as well. You may still encounter difficulties. For example:

• You are trying to enter Vietnamese in a font that does not have Vietnamese characters. For example, fonts like "Georgia" and "Garamond" do not support them. That's a shame. For the time being, stick with "Arial", "Times New Roman" and "Courier New". There are others.
• You are trying to enter Vietnamese in a pre-UNICODE "Vietnamese" font like VNI-Times. The result looks like poo. One way around it to set the "character set" to "VNI". However, I'd recommend against it, unless (a) you are printing it, or (b) you know the people you are sending the document to also have aVNI-font installed.
• There's one problem that I've had with Excel. You enter a Vietnamese word in a cell. You try to enter another word in another cell. Then the "Auto-complete" feature tries to guess what you are entering, and make a mess of it. This has happened to me a few times. I suggest you turn "Auto-complete" off.
• Finally, the program you are using doesn't support UNICODE at all, and cannot even understand what you are typing. For example, the main interface for the popular editor HTML-Kit cannot handle it.

But if you have a reason to learn Vietnamese, and if you are determined: go for it. I wish you the joy of discovery!

All mistakes in this document are mine.

Hmm, beer

Found this off of YT - an Asahi Beer dispensing machine at the Narita Airport (in the Northwest Lounge).

Speaking of airports, the best airport I've been to is the Beijing Capital International Airport, mainly because you can buy beer out of vending machines. Vending machine beer! And they have a selection too, mainly limited to Yanjing. For 8 or 10 RMBs, which is $1.00-1.25. It was a great way to use up all the coins I accumulated prior to departing the country.

Contrast this with Nội Bài airport in Hanoi. This place kinda sucked 'cause I couldn't find a cold soda anywhere. The gift counters on the main level sold knicknacks and room temperature soda. Only in the sole eatery in the whole joint, on the second floor, can you find a cold drink. $2 for a soda, which isn't bad for an airport, I guess. But Bejing spoiled me. Nội Bài needs to join the communist revolution and get some vending machines.

Speaking of Nội Bài, all this time I thought it was (translated) "Place to Fly" or basically "airport," in third grade speak. Little did I know that airport is "Nơi Bay" and the name of the airport is completely different. Darn diacritical marks!

Illiterate

Currently, I'm pretty much illiterate in Vietnamese. It would be a great help if one of these Web 2.0 ventures puts together a Text-To-Speech application; I can use something like that to cut-and-paste things for translations, or it can read along with me to help me pick up the language more quickly. One of the minor goals of mine is to be literate, say at a 6th grade level (i.e. reading Vietnam's version of the NYT), in 12 months.

I'm bemoaning my skill deficit because I really want to understand this piece in the Vietnamese language VN Express webzine. I can make out like 15%, which is not nearly enough. The picture above is from that piece, which also illustrates the concerns Katherine has about teenage traffic safety in Vietnam.

I came across the article from iCambo's post about, in his terms, "Hanoi Playaz." Love that old-skool "z." Anyhow, I am curious about what this article says regarding the Dân Chơi Hà Thành - dân chơi = folks who play and Hà Thành = another name for Ha Noi; so, loosely translated it means Hanoi Playboys (and gals). Apparently this issue of young kids flaunting cash is the current rage, as it is also covered here by Người Việt Online.

One thing it does demonstrate is that there is a entire community out there that I am unable to access (right now). As Mel pointed out, there are a bunch of Vietnamese language bloggers, including this white Canadian dude. English may be king in the world, but the kid who's Yahoo 360* blog started the entire Hanoi Playboy phenomena in the press, Cuong Oz, has nearly 1.5 Million page views. And that's after the conversion from VND ;). Language courses, here I come.