Declaring love
to their girlfriends with thousands of roses, shouting their love declaration
in public, or proposing by the light of hundreds of candles and kissing and
cuddling right on teeming streets -pictures of such scenes can be seen on many
Chinese websites. Educators worry that such behavior has been imported to Vietnam.

In August
2010, the image of a young couple embracing tightly in a crowded canteen in China was posted on Internet and it was spread
in Vietnam,
causing anger among parents.

Just a
short time later, the image of a man declaring love to his girlfriend, with a
heart-shaped bouquet of 1999 roses, also caught the public’s attention.

In December
2010, aclip appeared on Internet showing a young couple who were asked to leave
the bus for their inappropriate behavior.

Recently,
there is much talk among Vietnamese students
about the one minute clip showing two Chinese students kissing each
other passionately.

Vietnamese students
seem to want to prove they are in no way inferior to their Chinese peers in the
matters of love. A series of clips showing students kissing each others in
classrooms and on school yards have been posted on Internet .

In the
morning of April 10, 2010, students of the Journalism and Communication Academy’s
dormitory witnessed their schoolmate’s romantic declaration to his girlfriend .
Prior to that, students whispered in each other’s ears about another
declaration of love with 1000 candles and 100 roses in Dich
Vong Hau
Park in Hanoi. A student of Phan
Huy Chu
High School in Hanoi reportedly declared his love by
creating a big heart with roses’ petals.

Some say
that the love declaration with 150 roses at Noi Bai airport on November 25,
2010 made by a man who came to the airport to meet his girl, resembledwhat
happened in China
two years ago. In the the Chinese case, the man also turned up with 150 roses,
but the girl did not want to see him.

A shocking
clip posted on Internet on February 11, 2011 shows a couple of students in
school uniform making love at M Centre on Nguyen Chi Thanh Street in Hanoi.

The clips
have raised big worries among parents .

Nguyen Thi
Chinh, a counselor at Share Centre in Hanoi,
said that imitating others’ behavior is characteristic of teenagers. they simply want to show that they are adults
now, or prove that they are “different from or more special than others”.

Dr Trinh
Hoa Binh from the Institute
of Sociology calls this a
“deviance”. However, he believes that as a rule, all bad things will be
eliminated. “Young people nowadays have the opportunity to access more
information, but sometimes the information is not selective,” he explained.

Meanwhile,
Pham Thinh, a reporter of VTC News, thinks that the young people who behave
like that may also be simply eager to show their love. “I would support them if
I can be sure of their intentions,” he said.

Dr Do Thi
Thu Hang from the Journalism and Communication
Academy, when asked if
Internet and newspapers, which report many odd stories, are responsible for
such behavior among students, said that she does not think newspapers can be
harmful to students.

Reporter
Pham Thinh, said that such news on one hand, always draw a lot of attention but
that on the other hand, sometimes newspapers go too far in reporting them.

Van Chung