tv The Travel Show BBC News October 6, 2024 1:30pm-2:00pm BST
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this is bbc news. the headlines... beirut locals are surveying the damage of an intense wave of strikes israel launched in the lebanese capital overnight. israel has issued fresh evacuation orders for 25 areas in southern lebanon. the hamas—run health ministry says at least 26 people were killed when israeli air strikes hit a mosque and a school sheltering displaced people in the gaza strip early on sunday. israeli forces say that more than 30 rockets have been fired by hezbollah overnight into israel's northernmost city. the iron dome defence system has blocked some projectiles, while others managed to get through. un secretary—general antonio guterres has released a message demanding the "immediate and unconditional release" of hostages by hamas as october seventh approaches.
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anti—war protests are under way around the world. hundreds of thousands of people are calling for an end to the violence. a quick recap on our breaking news for you. several people have been injured in a 25—year—old woman has been killed in a shooting attack at a bus in israel. we have more details on our web page for you. police say this was a suspected terror attack carried out in beersheba in southern israel in the last hour and the and been in service says medics are treating ten casualties, some of whom suffered gunshot wounds. police saying the attacker has been killed. details there of what appears
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all of our lives are defined by the places we're connected to... ..and the people we hold close. they speak vietnamese my name is william lee adams, and i'm a vietnamese—american journalist and an author. i was born six years after the vietnam war ended. i'm here to explore a country that's helped shape me. for me, it all flows from the war that brought my parents together — two people, born 12 time zones apart, thrust together to build a life. my family lived in america, and my big brother, john, was my best friend. he speaks vietnamese but two years ago, he passed away. i have a lot of unfinished business. i want to bring him home, essentially. this is where he was born.
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this is where he was happiest... ..and this is where so many people who loved him and took care of him still are. i'm travelling across the country, starting in the capital city, hanoi, and ending over 1,500km away in ho chi minh city... ..where my family still lives in banana garden market. whispering: 0h, he's so well hidden. it's the most incredible journey i've ever taken, and i have to confront my family's difficult relationship with vietnam. my father and your grandfather would have been fighting against each other. yes. i lost my grandfather. will putting my brother to rest help me make peace with the past?
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i'm in hanoi, vietnam's capital city. and, like other early risers, i've come to lake hoan kiem. it's my first morning back in vietnam — a country i last visited nearly 20 years ago — and some things seem to have changed. we've got dancers busting that move! this is incredible! he laughs there's a real buzz, and the city seems more confident. i think the last time i was here, ifelt a bit like a fraud. i didn't think i could claim a vietnamese identity because i was born abroad. i know i'm of this place, and yet i'm completely removed from it. she speaks vietnamese i grew up in the deep south of the us in the 1980s, just years after the vietnam
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war had ended. there was a lot of animosity and resentment towards vietnamese people at that time, and my father really contributed to that narrative, because he told me, "you're not mixed race, you're not biracial, you're white." my mom did the same thing. she said, "oh, you're not vietnamese, you're american." and so i grew up ostensibly as a white american boy. they speak vietnamese so, i keep seeing the same people on loop running around. it seems really inclusive. you see people of all ages. you see foreigners. this lake really is the centre of public life. i'm optimistic about this journey. i think that, generally speaking, people are so warm and welcoming. but i do worry sometimes that maybe some people do remember the past. voice over radio: with music and news 24 hours a day, -
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this is armed radio service, vietnam. my parents met in vietnam. in 1968, my father was a nurse. he pulled bullets out of bones. and my mother at that time was a widower who had a young son, my brother, john. my dad fell in love with my mom and littlejohn, and in 1973, he asked my mom to move to the us. and her and herfamily reached the decision that she should go, but she needs to leavejohn in vietnam because she doesn't know my dad. is he a good person or a bad person? "so, why don't you learn english, test out your husband, and then we'll send john?" before emigrating to the us, my mother used to work in the family market stall in saigon, in south vietnam.
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these marketplaces are still the lifeblood of the country. so i'm off to meet lylla. she runs food tours. she's a food influencer. and i'm not going to struggle to find her, because i've been following her for months. 0h, lylla! hi! nice to meet you. nice meeting you! 0h. how are you? like the women in my family, lylla's mother also ran a market stall. so, we are on the side of dong xuan market. dong xuan market is one of the largest and also oldest market in hanoi. i think that vietnamese food gives me a route into vietnamese culture. and you smell that? oh, yeah. i smell that. you recognise the tangy? this dish is one of the most exciting dishes in hanoi. it connects you, because you can sit down with any vietnamese around the world, and they'll have an opinion on food. mmm! i definitely taste the tomato. yes. the rice vinegar, the dam gao,
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is so nice and tangy. mmm! it wakes you up. mmm. and it seems so communal — like, people are really gathering. i think market and food in general is kind of like the heart of vietnamese culture. it's like food is that important. ifeel, like, relating it to family and communities. because when you literally sit down and sharing a meal with somebody — a loved one, friends, and kind of get to know a stranger and sit right next to you. look at this, you're sharing the space with somebody you're meeting for the first time. i can tell this is really close to your heart. when you were a kid, did you help your mom cook? no, i did not. my mum was selling pho in the market. for my mum or my grandparents�* generation, they worked so hard, like, seven days per week, don't take a day off, to put you through the school. so i never realised how hard my mum had to work. now, you chose this particular pho restaurant. why was that? the locals love it here. i think her chicken
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is delicious. and then i think she reminds about my mother a lot. she opened this pho shop for about 32 years already. wow! well, i can't wait to taste 32 years of broth! i know, right? me too. i mean, i come here often, but ijust love it, the scene and everything. it really is a scene. it's funny. people are driving by, they're looking at her. it's like she's a local celebrity. yes. yes! the chicken here is getting so much attention. 0k. mmm! there's something very comforting about that. yes, it is. i've never had the hanoi pho ga, chicken pho... yeah. ..and it tastes fantastic. yeah. to be honest, when i was growing up, i didn't have a lot of vietnamese food, because my mom was quite isolated culturally. we always had fast food or microwaved food. it wasn't really home—cooked. i understand now why that was. our mother, they did what they did to raise who we are today and give
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us a life. yeah. yeah! and here we are eating chicken pho in hanoi... i know. on the side of the street. it all worked out. yes. pure luxury. yeah. he laughs and i think the vietnam war, or as we say, american war, here, divided the country and it led to the part that so many vietnamese people, like your mother, had to leave home and go to a different country where she don't speak the language and literally had to build life on the ground to raising her children. but now we have so many vietnamese all over the world and who are like you — spreading the love for vietnamese culture and food. so because of that, it's really more people in the world that know more about our food, our culture, our people. gong rings my mother left my brother in vietnam when she emigrated to the us. and then, in the years that followed, john got very ill. essentially, he had a fever and his brain started to swell, but vietnam didn't
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have the doctors or the medicine. it was still recovering from the war. so he started to lose control of his legs and his arms and his brain. but my aunts had hope. they said, "if he goes to the united states, perhaps he can be treated. perhaps he'll walk again." and so they told my mother he was unwell. however, they didn't tell her the full extent of his illness. the day she picked john up at the airport... ..he didn't recognise her. and he was no longer walking or talking. mom, you don't have to hide, lean back. the doctors in the us couldn't reversejohn�*s condition. caring for him became the focus of our family, especially for my mother. william speaks vietnamese
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video call ringtone oh, mom! yeah. ah, hey. one se... sorry. i'm partly doing this trip for my mother, and i know she wants to come back to vietnam, but she won't come. she blames her knees, or she has too much to do. but i'm thinking this is a down payment on a future visit. i look like an old 90—years—old woman. well, aren't you an old 90—year—old woman? well... ..not quite. william chuckles the dog show. the one with the chihuahua? yes. william chuckles good. you take care of him, huh? yeah, yeah, yeah. good. william chuckles i think in the past, when i was really young, john came between me and my mother.
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but on this trip, i feel like john has brought us together. and, mom, how do i say this? tell him i miss him very, very much and i will see him soon. he speaks vietnamese i will see him, ok? and your father, too. 0k? mmm. i miss him a lot, william. well, you take good care of him, huh? you make sure you put his picture at the temple. 0k? good. bye—bye, john. love you, john. wind chimes ring john and i, we were
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really raised together. he came to the united states in 1981, the year that i was born. he was 13 at the time. and so we were side—by—side the whole way. when i was a baby, i would play in his wheelchair. and i would squeeze the back of the seat and pull out the foam, and he'd be sitting on the floor next to me. i didn't understand the sadness that that wheelchair carried for my family. when i was a kid, we were both very isolated. i didn't speak till i was six. i was just so fearful and anxious. and he didn't speak because it wasn't really an option. we understood each other. we had this deep bond.
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as an adult, john lived in a nursing home in atlanta in the us. when he passed away in 2022, we held a service for him in a local buddhist temple. he speaks vietnamese i got really curious about incense after my brother's funeral. and the monks said that smoke, to many vietnamese people, connects this world with the spirit world. she speaks vietnamese and i read that, in hanoi, they have this incense village that ships the bamboo stick, which is used to make the incense, all over vietnam. so i wanted to see the people behind it. the incense village is like a rainbow exploded, and you see bundles of sticks drying and/or displayed on the ground.
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i'm taking my brother's ashes to saigon, where he was born. if i bring these incense, will it help our family? our local minders interrupt ourfilming. ah! it's a reminder of the limited press freedoms in a communist country. i came to this village to learn more about how these incense might be useful or helpful to my brother or my family when we take his ashes to the temple in saigon. but local authorities suggested that in some way what i was doing was wrong, or that it wasn't culturally acceptable. and itjust stings, to be honest, because i'm not doing this for any other reason than to make sure my brother is at peace and at rest and... he sighs ..to sort of bring closure to myself and to my family and my mother.
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train horn honks i'm adamant to move forward. it's time to leave north vietnam. announcements over intercom all right. here we go. 31 to 36. all right! for vietnamese people, the reunification express is the bloodline of the country. it connects most of the major cities. right. choosing a bunk. i'm going to stay low. during the vietnam war, this express railway was bombed all the time and vietnamese constantly rebuilt it. just 15 hours to go. it's a symbol of reunification of one nation. it's the end of day four, but i feel like i've been here for two or three weeks. when i got here, it wasjust a buzz of excitement. everything was fresh, in yourface, vivid, and now things have gone
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a bit grey. when i was at the incense village, it felt like i had done something bad or wrong and should feel shame. but a few days later, you know, it's fair enough. people do have different beliefs. we're motivated to honour the dead, to remember the dead and, in doing so, remind ourselves about life. what do you thinkjohn would make of making a documentary about this? he'd be laughing the whole time. he was always laughing about anything and everything. it was this joy, honestly. everything made him laugh. we'd watch baseball, which, honestly, ifound a little boring. you know, the ball�*s hit, he's cackling. and i think he would have liked being the centre of attention as well.
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i've come to the city of hoi an. for centuries, it was an important trading port. since then, it's become a travellers�* favourite. people flock to its atmospheric old town, which rests on a river. when i last visited hoi an, there were, like, five of us on the main street. it was not a tourist hot spot. and when i came back, i was really worried that maybe it might have lost its soul, because everyone all over the world is coming to hoi an now. but i think there are certain elements to hoi an that are so strong, they'll never change. the portuguese, the chinese, the japanese were all there. it's this gorgeous amalgamation of so many different cultures and art forms. i've been reading about people going on the river and lighting lanterns and sending out wishes and messages to people. so i'd like to do
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that for my brother. i think, for me, there's a lot of lingering guilt. he was my first friend and my best friend. but as we got older, i became more independent. and eventually, i left home. and in leaving home, i left him. it's high season in hoi an, and on the dock, it was pure chaos. there were so many people, so many boats. it was like a traffic jam in the water. but once i got in the boat, and once the rower took me a little further down the river, i was really on my own.
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it's been two years... ..but there's still this well of sadness. i was thinking about what could have been, and what was. my family in vietnam had sent john to the united states with this really sincere hope that doctors could make him better. but it never happened. but also remembering that john had a superpower, which was to always be happy, always laughing. when i lit the lantern and set it off, it sort of flowed and bobbed. he sobs
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for a minute, it would be out of sight and another boat would pass and i couldn't see it, but it would just bob up again... ..and i would see it. and the moment it faded away, i thought of the symmetry about how he died. he went to sleep and he never woke up. he left the world in a sigh... he left the world in a sigh... ..and the lantern ..and the lantern sort of did the same. ree sort of did the same. f it was a release. i felt likejohn i felt likejohn was saying, "it's ok. was saying, "it's ok.
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hello there. good afternoon. some rather unsettled conditions, weather—wise, for the next few days. it's a very messy picture with some showers, longer spells of rain, but also some brightness and some sunshine. although where we saw the best of the blue skies yesterday, it's now turned rather cloudy. and there will be some more showers through the rest of the day, mostly out towards the west. that's because there's a deep area of low pressure towards the west of ireland. with all of these showers spiralling around it,
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a little above and it will stay mild by night. now, you can see all of these fronts just gradually pushing their way further northwards and eastwards through tonight. some clear spells for a time, notably across northern areas of england. so here, temperatures could drop back into high single figures perhaps, but another fairly mild start to the day on monday, and it's more of the same. could be some longer spells of rain across northern and eastern areas of scotland, with those fronts just towards the north of us, but some more heavy, thundery showers pushing into south west england by the time we get to the end of the day. but it's a day of sunny spells and showers, feeling warm again in the best of the sunshine. 18 or 19 degrees perhaps. more showers affecting much of the uk as we head through tuesday. some brightness, some spells of sunshine in between once again. we'll see temperatures peak at 13 to 18 celsius, but it's all change on wednesday. now we look out towards the atlantic. this deep area of low pressure contains the remnants of hurricane kirk. at the moment, it's forecast to bring the worst of the weather
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across parts of the near continent. but it won't take too much for this very heavy rain to push into parts of kent and east sussex as we head through the afternoon. temperature—wise again, it's still feeling warm towards the south, colder air digging in further north, but it's as that deep low moves away that we'll see some very brisk winds indeed down through north sea —facing coasts. so do keep an eye on the forecast. and then as we draw down, more of a northerly wind. temperatures are set to dip as we head towards the end of the working week. so here's the outlook for our capital cities. notice how it's going to be turning a lot chillier.
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live from israel. live from london. this is bbc news. israel continues bombing lebanon — massive explosions rock the capital beirut through the night and into the day. smoke from strikes keeps lingering over beirut — israel has issued fresh evacuation orders for residents in southern lebanon. hezbollah fires more rockets at israel — with some landing in the country's north. calls for the release of hostages grow increasingly loud — as the anniversary of october 7th draws close. and as i was saying... picking up where he left off — donald trump returns to the very stage in butler, pennsylvania, where he survived an assassination attempt. and as mpox kills nearly 1,000 people this year,
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