Photo: MVBT
15/05/2025 06:00
Among the “veterans” who returned home with many memories, good and bad experiences, many of them felt the need for regular meetings and joint remembrance after their return home. These group meetings eventually became organized into a will and in 1989 they established the Hungarian-Vietnamese Friendship Association. The founders were originally composed of members of the ICCS, among whom, in addition to the overwhelming majority of soldiers, there were also police officers and diplomats. Later, several “civilians” also joined the Association. A development of the last decade is that more and more Vietnamese living in Hungary are participating and supporting the goals of the Association.
Excellent relations have been established with the Vietnamese-Hungarian Friendship Association operating in Vietnam, especially its Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City organizations, who greatly assist our work, as their ties to Hungary, and their experiences accumulated during their previous years of study here provide strong inspiration.
Several of the members of the MVBT have many years of diplomatic service behind them. Experience proves that strictly speaking, interstate diplomatic work is very important, but it is not effective enough and cannot reach the masses of the target country's population. We concentrate our work on the so called “people’s diplomacy,” or as modern international relations terminology calls this category, “soft power.” We are also trying to promote the establishment of sister city relations. Currently, several Hungarian-Vietnamese sister city relations already exist. Zalaegerszeg and Budapest's 14th district have also indicated their intention to establish such contacts. We will do everything to ensure that these intentions are realized and consolidated, as they represent concrete links between our countries.
Over the past decades, we have participated in numerous Hungarian film shoots, partly as actors, reminiscence writers, and partly as organizers. We organize these films in various parts of the country with our personal participation, audience meetings, and post-screening discussions, thereby contributing to the Hungarian population’s knowledge of Vietnam.
We have organized a permanent Vietnamese exhibition in Budapest (Óbuda) and several other cities in the country, photo exhibitions in Budapest and Debrecen. We maintain extensive and close relations with the Association of Vietnamese Living in Hungary, and jointly organized a gastronomic week in Budapest, at the Great Market Hall. We promote Hungarian translations of Vietnamese literary works. Some of our members are university lecturers who teach courses on the Southeast Asian region, including Vietnam.
Our Hungarian members are attached to the country due to the experiences they have gained during their longer or shorter time spent in Vietnam, while our Vietnamese members undertake this voluntary work to introduce, accept, and love their motherland. In our modern era, communication tools, “social media”, greatly help and facilitate our work.
All in all, the Hungarian-Vietnamese Friendship Association is committed to continuing all the work it has done over the past decades, hoping that it will contribute to maintaining and strengthening the friendship between the Hungarian and Vietnamese people.