1.
GV PAN FROM Traffic to roadside book-stalls with people reading (4 shots)
0.19

2.
SCU PAN Girl by stall to magazines including Playboy, war magazines
0.29

3.
CU PAN FROM Nudio books to Mao's quotations and Ho's Prison Diary (2 shots)
0.40

4.
CU Newsweek on stall TILT UP (3 shots)
0.48

5.
GV & MV Newspapers being sorted and sold (5 shots)
1.14



Initials BB/1325 LD/PN/BB/1400



Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved

Background: The Vietnamese people are insatiable readers--and Visnews Cameraman Neil Davis looked at how a nation with enormous education problems manages to satisfy this "hunger" for literature of all types.

In Saigon alone there are 100 weekly and monthly magazines of all types and descriptions--in Vietnamese, English and French. There are also 47 highly-competitive daily newspapers, 28 Vietnamese, 15 Chinese, two French and two English. But it is in books that they really delve--their interests covering the widest range. The most popular are love stories, followed closely by serious works such as poetry, plays and classics. Then come tales of history and legend. Modern day warfare stories are not popular.

There is little restriction on publications, and it is quite easy to purchase The Thoughts of Chairman Mao Tse-tung or the prison diary of Ho Chi Minh-side-by-side with nude magazines or U.S. weeklies like Newsweek and Time.

Vietnamese are largely self-taught--many of them learning to read on these publications which are sold in open-air markets in the street. And, if he cannot afford to bury them, the avid Vietnamese reader just stands and reads in the street alongside the stands.

SYNOPSIS: To satisfy this urge for literature -- they are largely self-taught, many learning to read from the wide-range of publications available in these street markets, where one hundred weekly and monthly magazines are sold in Vietnamese, English and French. There are few restrictions, oven on politically-motivated books such an Chairman Mao's thoughts or the prison diaries of Ho Chi Minh, found alongside U.S. weeklies.

Those who cannot afford to buy--road at the stands, including the vast supply of daily newspapers. In Saigon alone there are forty-seven highly competitive dailies--twenty-eight in Vietnamese, fifteen in Chinese, two each in English and French.