Name	Ho Chi Minh City
Alternative name	Saigon
Native name	''Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh''
Nickname	Paris of the Orient, the Pearl of the Orient, the Pearl of the Far East
Settlement type	Municipality
Map caption	Location in Vietnam and Southern Vietnam
Pushpin map
Pushpin label position
Pushpin mapsize	300
Coordinates display	inline,title
Coordinates region	VN
Subdivision type	Country
Subdivision name
Subdivision type1	Also Known As
Subdivision name1	Saigon
Leader title1	Party Secretary
Leader name1	Lê Thanh Hải
Leader title2	People's Committee Chairman:
Leader name2	Lê Hoàng Quân
Leader title3	People's Council Chairwoman:
Leader name3	Nguyễn Thị Quyết Tâm
Established title	Founded
Established date	1698
Established title2	Renamed
Established date2	1976
Established title3
Unit pref	Imperial
Parts type	Demonym
Parts style	para
P1	Saigonese
Area total km2	2,095
Area total sq mi	809.23
Population as of	1 April 2010
Population total	7,162,864 (1st in Vietnam)
Population total	7,396,446
Population density km2	3,531
Population density sq mi	9,141
Time zone	UTC+7
Utc offset	+7
Time zone dst	No DST
Utc offset dst	+7
Elevation footnotes
Elevation m	19
Elevation ft	63
Area code	+84 (8)
Website	Official website}}

Ho Chi Minh City (''Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh''; ), formerly named Saigon (''Sài Gòn''; ) is the largest city in Vietnam. It was once known as Prey Nokor, an important Khmer sea port prior to annexation by the Vietnamese in the 17th century.

Under the name Saigon, it was the capital of the French colony of Cochin-china and later of the independent state of South Vietnam from 1955–75. South Vietnam, as an anti-communist state, fought against the communist North Vietnamese and Viet Cong during the Vietnam War, with aid from the United States of America and countries including Australia, New Zealand and South Korea. Saigon fell when it was captured by the communists on 30 April 1975, bringing an end to the War with its enemy's victory. Vietnam was then turned into a communist state with the South overtaken. On 2 July 1976, Saigon merged with the surrounding Gia Định Province and was officially renamed Ho Chi Minh City after Hồ Chí Minh (although the name ''Sài Gòn'' is still commonly used.)

The city center is situated on the banks of the Saigon River, from the South China Sea and south of Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam.

The metropolitan area, which consists of the Ho Chi Minh City metropolitan area, Thủ Dầu Một, Dĩ An, Biên Hòa and surrounding towns, is populated by more than 9,000,000 people, making it the most populous metropolitan area in Vietnam and the countries of the former French Indochina. The Greater Ho Chi Minh City Metropolitan Area, a metropolitan area covering most parts of Đông Nam Baộ plus Tiền Giang and Long An provinces under planning will have an area of 30,000 square kilometers with a population of 20 million inhabitants by 2020. According to the Mercer Human Resource Consulting, Economist Intelligence Unit and ECA International, Ho Chi Minh City is ranked 132 on the list of world's most expensive cities for expatriate employees.

Name

Ho Chi Minh City has gone by several different names during its history, reflecting settlement by different ethnic, cultural and political groups. Originally known as ''Prey Nokor'' while part of the Khmer Empire, it came to be dubbed ''Sài Gòn'' informally by Vietnamese settlers from the north. In the 1690s, Nguyễn Hữu Cảnh, a Vietnamese noble, was sent by the Nguyễn rulers of Huế to establish Vietnamese administrative structures in the Mekong Delta and its surroundings. Control of the city and the area passed to the Vietnamese, who gave the city the official name of '''' (Chữ Nôm: 嘉 定). This name remained until the time of French conquest in the 1860s, when the occupying force adopted the name ''Saigon'' for the city, a westernized form of the traditional name, although the city was still indicated as 嘉 定 on Chinese maps until at least 1891. Immediately after the communist takeover of South Vietnam in 1975, a provisional government renamed the city after Hồ Chí Minh, the pre-eminent but by-then deceased North Vietnamese leader. Even today, however, the informal name of ''Sài Gòn'' remains in daily speech both domestically and internationally, especially among the Vietnamese diaspora. In particular, ''Sài Gòn'' is still commonly used to refer to District 1.

Etymology

;Sài Gòn A frequently heard, and reasonable, etymology of ''Sài Gòn'' is that Sài is a Chinese loanword (Chinese: 柴, pronounced in Mandarin) meaning “firewood, lops, twigs; palisade”, while Gòn is another Chinese loanword (Chinese: 棍, pronounced gùn in Mandarin) meaning “stick, pole, bole”, and whose meaning evolved into “cotton” in Vietnamese (''bông gòn'', literally “cotton stick”, i.e., “cotton plant”, then shortened to ''gòn''). This name may refer to the many kapok plants that the Khmer people had planted around Prey Nokor, and which can still be seen at Cây Mai temple and surrounding areas. It may also refer to the dense and tall forest that once existed around the city, a forest to which the Khmer name, Prey Nokor, already referred.

Other proposed etymologies draw parallels from ''Tai-Ngon'' (堤 岸), the Cantonese name of Cholon, which means "embankment" (French: ''quais''), and Vietnamese ''Sai Côn'', a translation of the Khmer ''Prey Nokor'' (). ''Prey'' means forest or jungle, and ''nokor'' is a Khmer word of Sanskrit origin meaning city or kingdom—thus, "forest city" or "forest kingdom".

;Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh The current official name, ''Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh'', abbreviated Tp. HCM, is translated as ''Ho Chi Minh City'', abbreviated HCMC, and in French as ''Hô Chi Minh Ville'' (the circumflex is sometimes omitted), abbreviated HCMV. The name commemorates Hồ Chí Minh, the pre-eminent North Vietnamese leader. This name, though not his given name, was one he favored throughout his later years. It combines a common Vietnamese surname (Hồ, 胡) with a given name meaning "enlightened will" (from Sino-Vietnamese 志 明; Chí meaning 'will' (or spirit), and Minh meaning 'light'), in essence, meaning "bringer of light".

History

Early history

Ho Chi Minh City began as a small fishing village known as Prey Nokor. The area that the city now occupies was originally swampland, and was inhabited by Khmer people for centuries before the arrival of the Vietnamese. It should be noted that in Khmer folklore southern Vietnam was given to the Vietnamese government as a dowry for the marriage of a Vietnamese princess to a Khmer prince in order to stop constant invasions and pillaging of Khmer villages.

Khmer territory

Beginning in the early 17th century, colonization of the area by Vietnamese settlers gradually isolated the Khmer of the Mekong Delta from their brethren in Cambodia proper and resulted in their becoming a minority in the delta. In 1623, King Chey Chettha II of Cambodia (1618–1628) allowed Vietnamese refugees fleeing the Trịnh–Nguyễn civil war in Vietnam to settle in the area of Prey Nokor and to set up a custom house there. Increasing waves of Vietnamese settlers, which the Cambodian kingdom could not impede because it was weakened by war with Thailand, slowly Vietnamized the area. In time, Prey Nokor became known as Saigon. Prey Nokor was the most important commercial seaport to the Khmers. The loss of the city prevented the Cambodians access to the South China Sea. Subsequently, the Khmers' access to the sea was now limited to the Gulf of Thailand.

Nguyễn Dynasty rule

In 1698, Nguyễn Hữu Cảnh, a Vietnamese noble, was sent by the Nguyễn rulers of Huế by sea to establish Vietnamese administrative structures in the area, thus detaching the area from Cambodia, which was not strong enough to intervene. He is often credited with the expansion of Saigon into a significant settlement. A large Vauban citadel called Gia Định was built, which was later destroyed by the French following the Battle of Kỳ Hòa (see Citadel of Saigon).

Colonial French era

Conquered by France in 1859, the city was influenced by the French during their colonial occupation of Vietnam, and a number of classical Western-style buildings and French villas in the city reflect this. Saigon had, in 1929, a population of 123,890, including 12,100 French.

Capital of South Vietnam

Former Emperor Bảo Đại made Saigon the capital of the State of Vietnam in 1949 with himself as head of state. After the Việt Minh gained control of North Vietnam in 1954, it became common to refer to the Saigon government as “South Vietnam.” The government was renamed the Republic of Vietnam when Bảo Đại was deposed by his Prime Minister Ngô Đình Diệm in 1955 in a fraudulent referendum. Saigon and Cholon, an adjacent city with many Sino-Vietnamese residents, were combined into an administrative unit known as the ''Đô Thành Sài Gòn'' (''Capital City Saigon'').

Post-Vietnam War and today

At the conclusion of the Vietnam War on 30 April 1975, the city came under the control of the Vietnamese People's Army. Among Vietnamese diaspora communities and particularly the U.S. (which had fought the communists), this event is commonly called the "fall of Saigon," while the communist Socialist Republic of Vietnam refers to it as the "Liberation of Saigon." In 1976, upon the establishment of the unified communist Socialist Republic of Vietnam, the city of Saigon (including Cholon), the province of Gia Ðịnh and two suburban districts of two other nearby provinces were combined to create Ho Chi Minh City in honor of the late Communist leader Hồ Chí Minh. The former name ''Saigon'' is still widely used by many Vietnamese, especially in informal contexts. Generally, the term ''Saigon'' refers only to the urban districts of Ho Chi Minh City.

Geography

Ho Chi Minh City is located at 10°10'- 10°38'N, 106°22'- 106°54'E in the southeastern region of Vietnam, south of Hanoi. The average elevation is above sea level. It borders Tây Ninh and Bình Dương provinces to the north, Đồng Nai and Bà Rịa–Vũng Tàu provinces to the east, Long An Province to the west and the South China Sea to the south with a coast 15 km long. The city covers an area of (0.63% of the surface of Vietnam), extending up to Củ Chi ( from the Cambodian border) and down to Cần Giờ on the Bien Dong coast. The distance from the northernmost point (Phu My Hung Commune, Củ Chi District) to the southernmost one (Long Hòa Commune, Cần Giờ District) is , and from the easternmost point (Long Binh Ward, District Nine) to the westernmost one (Bình Chánh Commune, Bình Chánh District) is .

Climate

The city has a tropical climate, specifically a tropical wet and dry climate, with an average humidity of 75%. The year is divided into two distinct seasons. The rainy season, with an average rainfall of about annually (about 150 rainy days per year), usually begins in May and ends in late November. The dry season lasts from December to April. The average temperature is , the highest temperature sometimes reaches around noon in late April, while the lowest may fall below in the early mornings of late December.

Political and administrative system

Saigon is a municipality at the same level as Vietnam's provinces. The city has been divided into twenty-four administrative divisions since December 2003. Five of these {Area: 1,601 km²} are designated as rural (''huyện''). The rural districts are Nhà Bè, Cần Giờ, Hóc Môn, Củ Chi, and Bình Chánh. A rural district consists of communes (''Xã'') and townships (''Thị trấn''). The remaining districts {Area: 494 km²} are designated urban or suburban (''quận''). This includes districts one to twelve, as well as Tân Bình, Bình Thạnh, Phú Nhuận, Thủ Đức, Bình Tân, Tân Phú and Gò Vấp. Each district is sub-divided into wards ("Phường"). Since December 2006, the city has had 259 wards, 58 communes and 5 townships (see List of HCMC administrative units below).

People's Committee

The Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee is a 13-member executive council for the city. The current chairman is Lê Hoàng Quân. There are several vice chairmen and chairwomen on the committee with responsibility for various city departments. The legislative branch of the city government is called the People's Council and consists of 95 deputies. Both the committee and the council are subordinate to the city's Communist Party, currently led by Party Secretary Lê Thanh Hải. The chairman of the People's Committee is the No. 2 position in the city government while chairman of the People's Council is No. 3.

Demographics

thumb|Tuệ Thành meeting house in [[Cholon, Ho Chi Minh City|Chinatown, Ho Chi Minh City, District 5]] The population of Ho Chi Minh City, as of the 1 October 2004 Census, was 6,117,251 (of which 19 inner districts had 5,140,412 residents and 5 suburban districts had 976,839 inhabitants). In mid-2007, the city's population was 6,650,942 – with the 19 inner districts home to 5,564,975 residents and the five suburban districts containing 1,085,967 inhabitants. The result of the 2009 Census shows that the city's population was 7,162,864 people, about 8.34% of the total population of Vietnam, making it the highest population-concentrated city in the country. As an administrative unit, its population is also the largest at the provincial level. The majority of the population are ethnic Vietnamese (Kinh) at about 93.52%. Ho Chi Minh City's largest minority ethnic group are the Chinese (Hoa) with 5.78%. Cholon – in District 5 and parts of Districts 6, 10 and 11 – is home to the largest Chinese community in Vietnam. Other ethnic minorities, include Khmer 0.34%, Cham 0.1%.

The inhabitants of Ho Chi Minh City are usually known as "Saigonese" in English, "Saigonnais" in French and "dân Sài Gòn" in Vietnamese. The Hòa, in addition, speak Cantonese, Teochew (Chaozhou), Hokkien, Hainanese and Hakka dialects of Chinese, with only a few speaking Mandarin Chinese. A varying degree of English is spoken especially in the tourism and commerce sectors where dealing with foreign nationals is a necessity, so English has become a de facto second language for some Saigonese.

According to some researchers the religious makeup of Ho Chi Minh City is as follows: Buddhism (all sects and/or including Taoism, Confucianism) 80%, Roman Catholic 11%, other groups (ism, Hòa Hảo, Cao Đài, Islam, Hinduism, Bahá'í Faith) 2%, and no religion/unknown 7%. .

Economy

Ho Chi Minh City is the economic center of Vietnam and accounts for a large proportion of the economy of Vietnam. Although the city takes up just 0.6% of the country's land area, it contains 8.34% of the population of Vietnam, 20.2% of its GDP, 27.9% of industrial output and 34.9% of the FDI projects in the country in 2005. In 2005, the city had 4,344,000 laborers, of whom 130,000 are over the labor age norm (in Vietnam, 60 for male and 55 for female workers). In 2009, GDP per capita reached 2,800 US$, compared to the country’s average level of $1042 USD in 2009.

In 2007, the city's GDP was estimated at $14.3 billion, or about $2,180 per capita, up 12.6 percent from 2006 and accounting for 20% of the country's GDP. The GDP adjusted to Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) reached $71.5 billion, or about $10,870 per capita (approximately three times higher than the country's average). The city's Industrial Product Value was $6.4   billion, equivalent to 30% of the value of the entire nation. Export – Import Turnover through HCMC ports accounted for $36   billion, or 40% of the national total, of which export revenue reached $18.3   billion (40% of Vietnam's total export revenues). In 2007, Ho Chi Minh City's contribution to the annual revenues in the national budget increased by 30 percent, accounting for about 20.5 percent of total revenues. The consumption demand of Ho Chi Minh City is higher than other Vietnamese provinces and municipalities and 1.5 times higher than that of Hanoi. As of June 2006, the city has been home to three export processing zones and twelve industrial parks. Ho Chi Minh City is the leading receiver of foreign direct investment in Vietnam, with 2,530 FDI projects worth 16.6 $ billion at the end of 2007. In 2007, the city received over 400 FDI projects worth $US 3,000,000,000. In 2008, it attracted $US 8.5 billion in FDI. In 2010, the city's GDP was estimated at $ 20,902 billion, or about $2,800 per capita,up to 11.8 percent from 2009.

Sectors

The economy of Ho Chi Minh City consists of industries ranging from mining, seafood processing, agriculture, and construction, to tourism, finance, industry and trade. The state-owned sector makes up 33.3% of the economy, the private sector 4.6%, and the remainder in foreign investment. Concerning its economic structure, the service sector accounts for 51.1%, industry and construction account for 47.7% and forestry, agriculture and others make up just 1.2%.

Quang Trung Software Park is a software park situated in District 12. The park is approximately 15 km from downtown Ho Chi Minh City and hosts software enterprises as well as dot.com companies. The park also includes a software training school. Dot.com investors here are supplied with other facilities and services such as residences and high-speed access to the internet as well as favorable taxation. Together with the hi-tech park in District 9, and the 32 ha. software park inside Tan Thuan Export Processing Zone in District 7 of the city, Ho Chi Minh City aims to become an important hi-tech city in the country and the South-East Asia region. This park helps the city in particular and Vietnam in general to become an outsourcing location for other enterprises in developed countries, as India has done. Some 300,000 businesses, including many large enterprises, are involved in high-tech, electronic, processing and light industries, and also in construction, building materials and agricultural products. Additionally, crude oil is a popular economic base in the city. Investors are still pouring money into the city. Total local private investment was 160,000,000,000 dong (USD $10,000,000,000) with 18,500 newly founded companies. Investment trends to high technology, services and real estate projects.

As of June 2006, the city City had three export processing zones and twelve industrial parks, in addition to Quang Trung Software Park and Ho Chi Minh City hi-tech park. Intel has invested about 1 billion dollars in a factory in the city. More than fifty banks with hundreds of branches and about 20 insurance companies are also located inside the city. The Stock Exchange, the first stock exchange in Vietnam, was opened in 2001. There are 171 medium and large-scale markets as well as several supermarket chains, shopping malls, and fashion and beauty centers.

Some of the larger shopping malls and plazas opened recently include:

Saigon Centre (1997) – 65 Le Loi Blvd, Ben Nghe Ward, District 1

Tax Plaza (1998) – 135 Nguyen Hue Blvd, Ben Nghe Ward, District 1

Diamond Plaza (1999) – 34 Le Duan Blvd, District 1

Big C (2002)- 138A To Hien Thanh St, 15th Ward, District 10

Crescent Mall

Parkson's (2005–2009) – Multiple locations

Saigon Paragon (2009) – 3 Nguyen Luong Bang St, Tan Phu Ward, District 7

NowZone (2009) – 235 Nguyen Van Cu Ave, Nguyen Cu Trinh Ward, District 1

Kumho Asiana Plaza (2010) – 39 Le Duan Blvd, Ben Nghe Ward, District 1

Vincom Centre (2010) – 70–72 Le Thanh Ton St, Ben Nghe Ward, District 1

Bitexco Financial Tower (2010) – Hẻm số 2 Hàm Nghi Blvd, Ben Nghe Ward, District 1

In 2007, three million foreign tourists, about 70% of the total number of tourists to Vietnam, visited the city. Total cargo transport to Ho Chi Minh City's ports reached 50.5   million metric tonnes, nearly one-third of the total for Vietnam.

New urban areas

With a population now of 7,382,287 (as of Census 2010 on 1 April 2010) (registered residents plus migrant workers as well as a metropolitan population of 10 million), Ho Chi Minh City needs increased public infrastructure. To this end, the city and central governments have embarked on an effort to develop new urban centers. The two most prominent projects are the Thu Thiem city center in District 2 and the Phu My Hung Urban Area, a new city center in District 7 (as part of the Saigon South project) where various international schools such as Saigon South International School and Australia's Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. In December 2007, Phu My Hung's new City Center completed the 17.8   km 10–14 lane wide Nguyen Van Linh Boulevard linking the Saigon port areas, Tan Thuan Export Processing Zone to the National Highway 1 and the Mekong Delta area. In November 2008, a brand new trade center, Saigon Exhibition and Convention Center, also opened its doors. Other projects include Grandview, Waterfront, Sky Garden, Riverside and Phu Gia 99. Phu My Hung's new City Center received the first Model New City Award from the Vietnamese Ministry of Construction.

Transport

Air

The city is served by Tân Sơn Nhất International Airport, the largest airport in Vietnam in terms of passengers handled (with an estimated number of over 15.5 million passengers per year in 2010, accounting for more than half of Vietnam's air passenger traffic). Long Thành International Airport is scheduled to begin operating in 2025. Based in Long Thành, Đồng Nai Province, about 40   km northeast of Ho Chi Minh City, Long Thành Airport will serve international flights, with a maximum traffic capacity of 100 million passengers per year when fully completed; Tân Sơn Nhất Airport will serve domestic flights.

Rail

Ho Chi Minh City is also a terminal for many Vietnam Railways train routes in the country. The Reunification Express (tàu Thống Nhất) runs from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi from Saigon Railway Station in District 3, with stops at cities and provinces along the line. Inner the city, the two main station are Sóng Thần and Sài Gòn. Besides, there are several small station such as Dĩ An, Thủ Đức, Bình Triệu, Gò Vấp. However, the rail transportation is not developed because it got about 0.6 percent of the number passenger and 6 percent of transporting merchandise.

Water

The city's location on the Saigon River makes it a bustling commercial and passenger port; besides a constant stream of cargo ships, passenger boats operate regularly between Ho Chi Minh City and various destinations in Southern Vietnam and Cambodia, including Vũng Tàu, Cần Thơ and the Mekong Delta, and Phnom Penh. Traffic between Ho Chi Minh City and Vietnam's southern provinces has steadily increased over the years; the Doi and Te Canals, the main routes to the Mekong Delta, receive 100,000 waterway vehicles every year, representing around 13 million tons of cargo. A project to dredge these routes has been approved to facilitate transport, to be implemented in 2011–14.

Inner city transportation

The main means of transport within the city are motorbikes, buses, taxis, and bicycles. Motorbikes remain the most common way to move around the city. Taxis are plentiful and usually have trip meters, although it is also common to agree on the trip price before taking a long trip, for example, from the airport to the city centre. Public buses run on many routes and fare can be purchased on the bus. For short trips, "xe ôm" (literally, "hug vehicle") motorcycle taxis are available where the passenger sits at the rear of a motorbike. A popular activity for tourists is a tour of the city on cyclos, which allow for longer trips at a more relaxed pace. For the last few years, cars have become more popular. . There are approximated 340,000 cars and 3.5 million motorcycles in the city, which is almost double compare to Hanoi.

Light rail

The Ho Chi Minh City Metro, a light rail rapid transit network, is currently in the preparation stages, with the first line currently under construction, to be completed by 2014. This first line will connect Bến Thành to Suối Tiên Park in District 9, with a depot in Long Binh. Planners expect the route to serve more than 160,000 passengers daily. A line between Bến Thành and Tham Luong in District 12 has been approved by the government, and several more lines are currently the subject of feasibility studies.

Society

Public health

The health care system of the city is relatively developed with a chain of about 100 government owned hospitals or medical centers and dozens of privately owned clinics. The 1,400 bed Chợ Rẫy Hospital, upgraded by Japanese aid and the French-sponsored Institute of Cardiology, are among the top medical facilities in Indochina. The Hòa Hảo Medical Diagnosis Center (Medic) and FV Hospital have recently attracted many clients, including foreigners, because of their good quality of service and modern equipment. Patients come from cities in nearby provinces and Cambodia as well. The Franco-Vietnam Hospital (FVH) is certified to French health standards.

Communications

The city's media are the most developed in the country. At present, there are seven daily newspapers: ''Sai Gon Giai Phong'' (''Liberated Saigon''), and its Chinese, investment and finance, sports, evening and weekly editions; ''Tuoi Tre'' (''Youth''), the highest circulation newspaper in Vietnam; ''Thanh Nien'' (''Young Men''), the second largest circulation in the south of Vietnam; ''Nguoi Lao Dong'' (''Labourer''); ''The Thao'' (''Sports''); ''Phap Luat'' (''Law'') and the ''Saigon Times Daily'', the English-language newspaper as well as more than 30 other newspapers and magazines. The city has hundreds of printing and publishing houses, many bookstores and a widespread network of public and school libraries; the city's General Library houses over 1.5 mìllion books. Locally-based Ho Chi Minh City Television (HTV) is the second largest television network in the nation, just behind the national Vietnam Television (VTV), broadcasting 24/7 on 7 different channels (using analog and digital technology). Many major international TV channels are provided through two cable networks (SCTV and HTVC), with over one million subscribers. The ''Voice of Ho Chi Minh City'' is the largest radio station in southern Vietnam.

Internet coverage, especially through ADSL connections, is rapidly expanding, with over 2,200,000 subscribers and around 5.5 million frequent users. Internet service providers (ISPs) operating in Ho Chi Minh City include the Vietnam Data Communication Company (VDC), Corporation for Finance and Promoting Technology (FPT), Netnam Company, Saigon Post and Telecommunications Services Corporation (Saigon Postel Corporation, SPT) and Viettel Company. As in all of Vietnam, Internet access is regulated; websites containing sensitive political or religious content are routinely blocked, and certain websites such as Facebook have been blocked, though government officials deny that this is intentional. The city has more than two million fixed telephones and about fifteen million cellular phones (the latter growing annually by 20%). Mobile phone service is provided by a number of companies, including Viettel Mobile, MobiFone, VinaPhone, and S-Fone.

Education

There are such notable high schools in Ho Chi Minh City as the Lê Hồng Phong High School for the Gifted, Phổ Thông Năng Khiếu High School for the Gifted, Trần Đại Nghĩa High School for the Gifted, Nguyễn Thượng Hiền High School, Nguyễn Thị Minh Khai High School, Gia Định High School, among others. There are two main high school systems in Ho Chi Minh City, public schools and private schools. High school consists of grade 10–12 (sophomore, junior, and senior).

Higher education in Ho Chi Minh City is concentrated over 80 universities and colleges with a total of over 400,000 students in such places as: Vietnam National University with 50,000 students, the most important university in the Southern Region, consisting of 6 main member schools: The University of Sciences (formerly Saigon College of Sciences); The University of Social Sciences and Humanities (formerly Saigon College of Letters); The University of Technology (formerly Phu Tho National Institute of Technology); The International University, The University of Economics and Law and the newly-established University of Information Technology.

Some other important higher education establishments include: HCMC University of Pedagogy, University of Economics, University of Architecture, University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Nong Lam University (formerly University of Agriculture and Forestry), University of Law, University of Technical Education, University of Banking, University of Industry, Open University, University of Sports and Physical Education, University of Fine Arts, University of Culture, the Conservatory of Music, the Saigon Institute of Technology, Van Lang University, Saigon University and Hoa Sen University.

The RMIT University with about 6,000 students, the unique foreign-invested higher-education unit in Vietnam at the present, was founded in 2001 by the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) of Australia. This is one of the best private institutions in Vietnam at the moment and the tuition fee here, with an average of USD $20000 for the whole program which is still lower than the price of studying abroad in Australia or the United States for many Vietnamese students.

Tourism

[[File:HCMC Reunification Palace.jpg|thumb|Reunification Palace, District 1.]] Today, the city's core is still adorned with wide elegant boulevards and historic French colonial buildings. The most prominent structures in the city center are Reunification Palace (''Dinh Thống Nhất''), City Hall (''Ủy ban nhân dân Thành phố''), the Municipal Theatre (''Nhà hát thành phố'', also known as the Opera House), City Post Office (''Bưu điện thành phố''), State Bank Office (''Ngân hàng nhà nước''), City People's Court (''Tòa án nhân dân thành phố'') and Notre-Dame Cathedral (''Nhà thờ Đức Bà''). Some of the historic hotels are the Hotel Majestic, dating from the French colonial era, and the Rex and Caravelle hotels are former hangouts for American officers and war correspondents in the 1960s/70s. It was approximated 4.3 millions tourist visited Vietnam in 2007, and 70 percent, about 3 millions came to visit Ho Chi Minh city.. In 2007, the number tourist came to the city increased up to 12 percent compare to 2006, and the tourism industry got up to 19,500 billion VND, went up to 20 percent.

The city has various museums, such as the Ho Chi Minh City Museum, Museum of Vietnamese History, the Revolutionary Museum, the Museum of Southeastern Armed Forces, the War Remnants Museum, the Museum of Southern Women, the Museum of Fine Art, the Nha Rong Memorial House, and the Ben Duoc Relic of Underground Tunnels. The Củ Chi tunnels are northwest of the city in Củ Chi district. The Saigon Zoo and Botanical Gardens, in District 1, dates from 1865. Aside from the Municipal Theatre, there are other places of entertainment such as: the Bến Thành and Hòa Bình theatres and the Lan Anh Music Stage. The Đầm Sen Tourist and Cultural Park, Suối Tiên Amusement and Culture Park, and Cần Giờ's Eco beach resort are three recreational sites inside the city which are popular with tourists. Ho Chi Minh City is home to hundreds of cinemas and theatres, with cinema and dramatic ticketing revenue accounting for 60–70% of Vietnam's total revenue in this industry.

Unlike other dramatic teams in Vietnam's provinces and municipalities, residents of Ho Chi Minh City keep their theaters active without being subsidized by the Vietnamese government. The city is home to most of the private movie companies in Vietnam. Like many of Vietnam's smaller cities, the city boasts a multitude of restaurants serving typical Vietnamese dishes such as phở or rice vermicelli. Backpacking travelers most often frequent the "Western Quarter" on Phạm Ngũ Lão Street, District 1, Ho Chi Minh City.

Sports and recreation

As of 2005, Ho Chi Minh City was home to 91 football fields, 86 swimming pools, 256 gyms. The largest stadium in the city is the 25,000-seat Thong Nhat Stadium, located on Đào Duy Từ Street, in Ward 6 of District 10. The next largest is Army Stadium, located near Tân Sơn Nhứt Airport in Tân Bình district. Army Stadium was of the venues for the 2007 AFC Asian Cup finals. As well as being a sporting venue, it is also the site of a music school. Phú Thọ Racecourse, another notable sporting venue established during colonial times, is the only racetrack in Vietnam. The city's Department of Physical Education and Sports also manages a number of clubs, including Phan Dinh Phung, Thanh Da, and Yet Kieu.

Ho Chi Minh City is home to a number of association football clubs. One of the city's largest clubs, Ho Chi Minh City F.C., is based at Thong Nhat Stadium. As ''Cảng Sài Gòn'', they were four-time champions of Vietnam's V-League (in 1986, 1993–94, 1997, and 2001–02). The team currently plays in Vietnam's First Division. Navibank Saigon F.C., founded as ''Quân Khu 4'', also based at Thong Nhat Stadium, emerged as champions of the First Division in the 2008 season, and were promoted to the V-League in 2009. The city's police department also fielded a football team in the 1990s, Công An Thành Phố, which won the V-League championship in 1995. Celebrated striker Lê Huỳnh Đức, now manager of SHB Ðà Nẵng F.C., played for the Police F.C. from 1995–2000, setting a league record of 25 goals in the 1996 season. In 2011, Ho Chi Minh City was awarded an expansion team for the ASEAN Basketball League.

SSA Saigon Heat is the first ever international professional basketball team to represent Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh City hosts a number of international sports events throughout the year, such as the AFF Futsal Championship and the Vietnam Vertical Run. Several other sports are represented by teams in the city, such as volleyball, basketball, chess, athletics, and table tennis.

Sister cities

There are 25 sister cities/regions of Ho Chi Minh City: {| style="background:#f5f5f5; padding:0 1em;" |- !width=65%| City !width=25%| From |- | Shanghai, People's Republic of China || 14 May 1994 |- | Manila, Philippines || 27 June 1994 |- | San Francisco, USA || 10 April 1995 |- | Osaka, Japan || 13 June 1995 |- | Busan, Republic of Korea || 3 November 1995 |- | Guangzhou, People's Republic of China || 1 April 1996 |- | Lyon, France || 17 January 1997 |- | Shenyang, People's Republic of China || 21 April 1999 |- | Sverdlovsk Oblast, Russia || 5 September 2000 |- | Champasak Province, Laos || 28 August 2001 |- | Vientiane, Laos || 1 September 2001 |- | Rhône-Alpes (region), France || 8 November 2001 |- | Phnom Penh, Cambodia || June 2002 |- | Moscow, Russia || 31 October 2003 |- | Saint Peterburg, Russia || 9 December 2005 |- | Toronto, Canada || 13 February 2006 |- | Geneva, Switzerland || 13 April 2007 |- | Yokohama, Japan || 23 July 2007 |- | Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan || 27 October 2007 |- | Guangdong, People's Republic of China || 10 September 2008 |- | Minsk, Belarus || 4 November 2008 |- | Vladivostok, Russia || 21 May 2009 |- | Barcelona, Spain || 29 May 2009 |- | Seville, Spain || 29 May 2009 |- | Johannesburg, Republic of South Africa || 10 November 2009 |- | Tabriz, Islamic Republic of Iran|| date unclear |}

See also

List of historical capitals of Vietnam

List of tallest buildings in Vietnam

Notes

References

External links

Official website (in Vietnamese and English)

Ho Chi Minh City People's Council

Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee

History of Ho Chi Minh City

Ho Chi Minh City – Vietnam Online

Ho Chi Minh City – The Vietnam Guide

}}

Category:Cities in Vietnam Category:District capitals in Vietnam Category:Southeast (Vietnam) Category:Populated places in Ho Chi Minh City Category:Port cities in Vietnam

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Name	John Peel
Birth name	John Robert Parker Ravenscroft
Birth date	August 30, 1939
Birth place	Heswall, England
Death date	October 25, 2004
Death place	Cusco, Peru
Country	United Kingdom
Website	BBC minisite

John Robert Parker Ravenscroft, OBE (30 August 1939 – 25 October 2004), known professionally as John Peel, was an English disc jockey, radio presenter, record producer and journalist. He was the longest-serving of the original BBC Radio 1 DJs, broadcasting regularly from 1967 until his death in 2004. He was known for his eclectic taste in music and his honest and warm broadcasting style.

He was one of the first broadcasters to play psychedelic rock and progressive rock records on British radio, and he is widely acknowledged for promoting artists working in various genres, including pop, reggae, indie rock, alternative rock, punk, hardcore punk, breakcore, grindcore, death metal, British hip hop, and dance music.

Peel's Radio 1 shows were notable for the regular 'Peel sessions', which usually consisted of four songs recorded by an artist live in the BBC's studios, and which often provided the first major national coverage to bands that later would achieve great fame. (These 'sessions' are similar to 'Live Lounge' sessions recorded today for the station.) Another popular feature of his shows was the annual Festive Fifty countdown of his listeners' favourite records of the year.

Peel appeared frequently on British television as one of the presenters of ''Top of the Pops'' in the 1980s, and he provided voice-over commentary for a number of BBC programmes. He became popular with the audience of BBC Radio 4 for his ''Home Truths'' programme, which ran from the 1990s, featuring unusual stories from listeners' domestic lives.

Life and career

Early life

Peel was born in Heswall Cottage Hospital in Heswall on the Wirral Peninsula, near Liverpool, and grew up in the nearby village of Burton. His father was an upper middle class cotton merchant, and he was sent away to be educated as a boarder at Shrewsbury School.

His housemaster, R H J Brooke, whom Peel described as "extraordinarily eccentric" and "amazingly perceptive," wrote on one of his school reports, "Perhaps it's possible that John can form some kind of nightmarish career out of his enthusiasm for unlistenable records and his delight in writing long and facetious essays." In his posthumously published autobiography, Peel revealed that he had been raped by an older pupil while at Shrewsbury.

After finishing his National Service in 1959 in the Royal Artillery as a B2 radar operator, he worked as a mill operative at Townhead Mill in Rochdale and travelled home each weekend to Heswall on a scooter borrowed from his sister. Whilst in Rochdale Monday to Friday, he stayed in a bed-and-breakfast in the area of Milkstone Road and Drake Street. Peel was a vegetarian.

United States

In 1960, he went to the United States to work for a cotton producer who had business dealings with his father. Once this job finished, he took a number of others, including working as a travelling insurance salesman, remaining in the United States until 1967. While in Dallas, Texas, where the insurance company he worked for was based, he spoke to John F. Kennedy as the presidential candidate and his running mate, Lyndon B. Johnson, who were touring the city during the 1960 Presidential election campaign.

Following Kennedy's assassination in November 1963, Peel passed himself off as a reporter for the ''Liverpool Echo'' in order to attend the arraignment of Lee Harvey Oswald, and he and a friend can be seen in the footage of the 22/23 November midnight press conference at Dallas Police Department when Oswald was paraded before the media. He later phoned in the story to the ''Liverpool Echo''.

While working for the insurance company, Peel filed card programs for an early IBM 1410 computer (which led to his entry in ''Who's Who'' noting him as a former computer programmer), and he got his first radio job, albeit unpaid, working for WRR (AM) in Dallas. There, he presented the second hour of the Monday night programme ''Kat's Karavan'', which was primarily hosted by the American singer and radio personality Jim Lowe. Following this, and as Beatlemania hit the United States, Peel got a job with the Dallas radio station KLIF as the official The Beatles correspondent on the strength of his connection to Liverpool. He later worked for KOMA in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma until 1965 when he moved to KMEN in San Bernardino, California, using the name John Ravencroft to present the breakfast show.

While in Dallas, in 1965, he married his first wife, Shirley Anne Milburn, in what Peel later described as a "mutual defence pact". The marriage was never happy and although she accompanied Peel back to Britain in 1967, they were soon separated. The divorce became final in 1973.

Return to Britain

Peel returned to England in early 1967 and found work with the offshore pirate radio station Radio London. He was offered the midnight-to-two shift, which gradually developed into a programme called ''The Perfumed Garden'' (some thought it was named after an erotic book famous at the time - which Peel claimed never to have read). It was on "Big L" that he first adopted the name John Peel (the name was suggested by a Radio London secretary) and established himself as a distinctive radio voice.

Peel's show was an outlet for the music of the UK underground scene. He played classic blues, folk music and psychedelic rock, with an emphasis on the new music emerging from Los Angeles and San Francisco. As important as the musical content of the programme was the personal—sometimes confessional—tone of Peel's presentation, and the listener participation it engendered. Underground events he had attended during his periods of shore leave, like the UFO Club and "The 14 Hour Technicolor Dream", together with causes célèbres like the drug "busts" of the Rolling Stones and John "Hoppy" Hopkins, were discussed between records. All this was far removed from Radio London's daytime format. Listeners sent Peel letters, poems, and records from their own collections, so that the programme became a vehicle for two-way communication; by the final week of Radio London he was receiving far more mail than any other DJ on the station.

After the closure of Radio London in 1967 Peel wrote a column under the title ''The Perfumed Garden'' for the underground newspaper the ''International Times'' (from autumn 1967 to mid-1969), in which he showed himself to be a committed, if critical, supporter of the ideals of the underground. A ''Perfumed Garden'' mailing list was set up by a group of keen listeners, which facilitated contacts and gave rise to numerous small-scale, local arts projects typical of the time, including the poetry magazine ''Sol''.

BBC career

When Radio London closed down on 14 August 1967, John Peel joined the BBC's new pop music station, BBC Radio 1, which began broadcasting the following month. Unlike Big L, Radio 1 was not a full-time station, but a hybrid of recorded music and live studio orchestras. Peel recalled, "I was one of the first lot on Radio 1 and I think it was mainly because ... Radio 1 had no real idea what they were doing so they had to take people off the pirate ships because there wasn't anybody else." Peel presented a programme called ''Top Gear''. At first he was obliged to share presentation duties with other DJs (Pete Drummond and Tommy Vance were among his co-hosts) but in February 1968 he was given sole charge of ''Top Gear''; he continued to present the show until it ended in 1975. Peel played an eclectic mix of the music that caught his attention, which he would continue to do throughout his career.

During 1969, after hosting a trailer for a BBC programme on VD on his ''Night Ride'' programme, Peel received significant media attention because he divulged on air that he had suffered from a sexually transmitted disease earlier that year. This admission was later used in an attempt to discredit him when he appeared as a defence witness in the 1971 ''Oz'' obscenity trial.

The ''Night Ride'' programme, advertised by the BBC as an exploration of words and music, seemed to take up from where ''The Perfumed Garden'' had left off. It featured rock, folk, blues, classical and electronic music. A unique feature of the programme was the inclusion of tracks, mostly of exotic non-Western music, drawn from the BBC Sound Archive; the most popular of these were gathered on a BBC Records LP, ''John Peel's Archive Things'' (1970). ''Night Ride'' also featured poetry readings and numerous interviews with a wide range of guests, including personal friends Marc Bolan, journalist and musician Mick Farren, poet Pete Roche, and singer-songwriter Bridget St. John and stars such as the Byrds, the Rolling Stones and John Lennon and Yoko Ono. The programme captured much of the creative activity of the underground scene. Its anti-establishment stance and unpredictability did not find approval with the BBC hierarchy, and it ended in September 1969 after 18 months. In his sleeve notes to the ''Archive Things'' LP Peel calls the free-form nature of ''Night Ride'' his preferred radio format. His subsequent shows featured a mixture of records and live sessions, a format which would characterise his Radio 1 programmes for the rest of his career.

After separation from his first wife, Peel's personal life began to stabilise, as he found friendship and support from new ''Top Gear'' producer John Walters - and from his girlfriend Sheila Gilhooly, who he identified on-air as "the Pig". Peel married Sheila on 31 August 1974. The reception was in London's Regent's Park, with Walters as best man. Peel wore Liverpool football colours (red) and walked down the aisle to the song "You'll Never Walk Alone". Their sheepdog, Woggle, served as a bridesmaid.

Peel's enthusiasm for music outside the mainstream occasionally brought him into conflict with the Radio 1 hierarchy. In early 1977 station controller Derek Chinnery contacted John Walters and asked him to confirm that the show was not playing any punk, which he (Chinnery) had read about in the press and disapproved of. Chinnery was evidently somewhat surprised by Walters' reply that in recent weeks they had been playing little else. In 1979 Peel stated: "They leave you to get on with it. I'm paid money by the BBC not to go off and work for a commercial radio station...I wouldn't want to go to one anyway, because they wouldn't let me do what the BBC let me do."

Peel's reputation as an important DJ breaking unsigned acts into the mainstream was such that young hopefuls sent him an enormous amount of records, CDs, and tapes. When he returned home from a three week holiday at the end of 1986 there were 173 LPs, 91 12"s and 179 7"s waiting for him. Another example in point is that in 1983 unsigned artist Billy Bragg drove to the Radio 1 studios with a mushroom biryani and a copy of his record after hearing Peel mention that he was hungry, the subsequent airplay launching his career. Another example is that John Peel's favourite record for over a year in the late seventies/early eighties was Mopsie Beans EP "One Out" . In the 1970s Peel and Sheila moved to a thatched cottage in the village of Great Finborough near Stowmarket in Suffolk, nicknamed "Peel Acres". In later years Peel broadcast many of his shows from a studio in the house, with Sheila and their children often being involved or at least mentioned. Peel's passion for Liverpool F.C. was reflected in his children's names: William Robert Anfield, Alexandra Mary Anfield, Thomas James Dalglish, and Florence Victoria Shankly. His later shows also regularly featured live performances (broadcast live, unlike the pre-recorded Peel sessions), mostly from BBC Maida Vale Studios in West London, but occasionally in the Peel Acres living room.

In addition to his Radio 1 show, Peel broadcast as a disc jockey on the BBC World Service, 30 years on the British Forces Broadcasting Service BFBS (John Peel's Music on BFBS), VPRO Radio3 in the Netherlands, YLE Radio Mafia in Finland, Ö3 in Austria (Nachtexpress), and on Radio 4U, Radio Eins (Peel ...), Radio Bremen (Ritz) and some independent radio stations around FSK Hamburg in Germany. As a result of his BFBS programme he was voted, in Germany, 'Top DJ in Europe'.

Peel was an occasional presenter of ''Top of the Pops'' on BBC 1 TV from the late 1960s until the 1990s, and in particular from 1982 to 1987 when he appeared regularly. In 1971 he appeared not as presenter but performer, alongside Rod Stewart and The Faces, pretending to play mandolin on "Maggie May". He often presented the BBC's television coverage of music events, notably Glastonbury Festival.

Later years

Between 1995 and 1997, Peel presented a show about children, called ''Offspring'', on BBC Radio 4. In 1998, ''Offspring'' grew into the magazine-style documentary show ''Home Truths''. When he took on the job presenting the programme, which was about everyday life in British families, Peel requested that it be free from celebrities, as he found real life stories more entertaining. ''Home Truths'' was described by occasional stand-in presenter John Walters as being "about people who had fridges called Renfrewshire". Peel also made regular contributions to BBC Two's humorous look at the irritations of modern life ''Grumpy Old Men''. His only appearance in an acting role in film was in 1999 as a "grumpy old man who catalogues records" in ''Five Seconds to Spare'', although he had provided narration for others.

He appeared as a celebrity guest on a number of TV shows, including ''This Is Your Life'' (1996, BBC), ''Travels With My Camera'' (1996, Channel 4 TV) and ''Going Home'' (2002, ITV TV), and presented the 1997 Channel 4 series ''Classic Trains''. He was also in demand as a voice-over artist for television documentaries, such as BBC One's ''A Life of Grime''.

At the age of 62 he was diagnosed with diabetes, following many years of fatigue.

In April 2003, the publishers Transworld successfully wooed Peel with a package worth up to £1.6 million for his autobiography, having placed an advert in a national newspaper aimed only at Peel. Unfinished at the time of his death it was completed by Sheila and journalist Ryan Gilbey. It was published in October 2005 under the title ''Margrave of the Marshes''. A collection of Peel's miscellaneous writings, ''The Olivetti Chronicles'', was published in 2008.

Death

Peel died suddenly at the age of 65 from a heart attack on 25 October 2004, on a working holiday in the Inca city of Cusco in Peru. Shortly after the announcement of his death, tributes began to arrive from fans and supporters both in and out of public life. On 26 October 2004 BBC Radio 1 cleared its schedules to broadcast a day of tributes. London's Evening Standard boards that afternoon read "the day the music died".

Peel had often spoken wryly of his eventual death. He once said on the show ''Room 101'', "I've always imagined I'd die by driving into the back of a truck while trying to read the name on a cassette and people would say, 'He would have wanted to go that way.' Well, I want them to know that I wouldn't." At one point, he said that if he died before his producer John Walters, he wanted the latter to play Roy Harper's "When an Old Cricketer Leaves the Crease". Walters having died in 2001, it was left to Andy Kershaw to end his tribute programme to Peel on BBC Radio 3 with the song. Peel's stand-in on his Radio 1 slot, Rob da Bank, also played the song at the start of the final show before his funeral. Another time, Peel said he'd like to be remembered with a gospel song. He stated that the final record he would play would be the Rev C. L. Franklin's sermon "Dry Bones in The Valley".

On his Home Truths BBC radio show John once commented about his own death: "I definitely want to be buried, although not yet. I'm 61 on Wednesday - just a working day for me, I'm afraid - so actuarily (sic) I should have a mile or two left in me, but I do want the children to be able to stand solemnly at my graveside and think lovely thoughts along the lines of 'Get out of that one, you swine', which they won't be able to do if I've been cremated. I think I want 'Teenage dreams, so hard to beat' on my gravestone and every night at dusk the trumpeters of the 5th Battalion King's Shropshire Light Infantry to play Misty in Roots' Mankind over the grave. Lovely."

Peel's funeral, on 12 November 2004, in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, was attended by over a thousand people, including many of the artists he had championed. Eulogies were read by his brother, Alan Ravenscroft, and DJ Paul Gambaccini. The service ended with clips of him talking about his life and his coffin was carried out to the accompaniment of his favourite song, The Undertones' "Teenage Kicks". Peel had written that, apart from his name, all he wanted on his gravestone were the words, "Teenage dreams, so hard to beat", from the lyrics of "Teenage Kicks". A headstone engraved in accordance with his wishes was placed at his grave in 2008. Peel is buried at St Andrew's Church, in the village of Great Finborough, Suffolk.

Life in music

Peel sessions

A feature of Peel's BBC Radio 1 shows were the famous John Peel Sessions, which usually consisted of four pieces of music pre-recorded at the BBC's studios. The sessions originally came about due to restrictions imposed on the BBC by the Musicians' Union and Phonographic Performance Limited which represented the record companies dominated by the EMI cartel. Because of these restrictions the BBC had been forced to hire bands and orchestras to render cover versions of recorded music. The theory behind this device was that it would create employment and force people to buy records and not listen to them free of charge on the air. One of the reasons why all of the offshore broadcasting stations of the 1960s were called "pirates" was because they operated outside of British laws and were not bound by the needle time restriction on the number of records they could play on the air.

The BBC employed its own house bands and orchestras and it also engaged outside bands to record exclusive tracks for its programmes in BBC studios. This was the reason why Peel was able to use "session men" in his own programmes. Sessions were usually four tracks recorded and mixed in a single day; as such they often had a rough and ready, demo-like feel, somewhere between a live performance and a finished recording. Peel remained on BBC Radio 1 for 37 years, until his death in 2004. During that time over 4000 sessions were recorded by over 2000 artists. Many classic Peel Sessions have been released on record, particularly by the Strange Fruit label.

Festive Fifty

An annual tradition of Peel's Radio 1 show was the Festive Fifty—a countdown of the best tracks of the year as voted for by the listeners. Despite Peel's eclectic play list, the Festive Fifty tended to be composed largely of "white boys with guitars", as Peel complained in 1988. In 1991 the broadcast of the chart was cancelled due to a lack of votes, although many have speculated that it was because it didn't feature a single entry from the dance acts that Peel had been championing that year. Topped by Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit", this Phantom Fifty was eventually broadcast at the rate of one track per programme in 1993. The 1997 chart was initially cancelled due to the lack of air-time Peel had been allocated for the period, but enough "spontaneous" votes were received over the phone that a Festive Thirty-One was compiled and broadcast.

Peel wrote that "The Festive 50 dates back to what was doubtless a crisp September morning in the early-to-mid Seventies, when John Walters and I were musing on life in his uniquely squalid office. In our waggish way, we decided to mock the enthusiasm of the Radio 1 management of the time for programmes with alliterative titles. Content, we felt, was of less importance than a snappy ''Radio Times'' billing. In the course of our historic meeting we had, I imagine, some fine reasons for dismissing the idea of a Festive 40 and going instead for a Festive 50, a decision that was to ruin my Decembers for years to come, condemning me to night after night at home with a ledger, when I could have been out and about having fun, fun, fun."

After his death, the Festive Fifty was continued on Radio 1 by Rob Da Bank, Huw Stephens and Ras Kwame for two years, but then given to Peel-inspired Internet radio station Dandelion Radio, which continues to compile it to this day.

Dandelion Records and Strange Fruit

In 1969 Peel founded Dandelion Records (named after his pet hamster) so he could release the debut album by Bridget St John, which he also produced. The label released 27 albums by 18 different artists before folding in 1972. Of its albums, ''There is Some Fun Going Forward'' was a sampler intended to present its acts to a wide audience, however Dandelion was never a great success, with only two releases charting in national charts: Medicine Head in the UK with "(And The) Pictures In The Sky" and Beau in Lebanon with "1917 Revolution".

As Peel stated:

It was never a success financially. In fact, we lost money, if I remember correctly, on every single release bar one. I did quite like it but it was terribly indulgent. Not as indulgent as it would have been had I not had a business partner, admittedly... I liked having a label. It enabled you to put out stuff that you liked without, in those days, having to worry about whether it was going to work commercially. I've never been a good business man.

Peel appeared on one Dandelion release: the David Bedford album ''Nurses Song with Elephants'', recorded at the Marquee Studios, as part of a group playing twenty-seven plastic pipe twirlers on the track "Some Bright Stars for Queen's College".

In the 1980s Peel set up the Strange Fruit Records with Clive Selwood to release material recorded by the BBC for Peel Sessions.

Production (albums)

1969: ''Mike Hart Bleeds'' - Mike Hart

1969: ''The Year of the Great Leap Sideways'' - Occasional Word Ensemble

1969: ''Soundtrack'' - Principal Edwards Magic Theatre

1970: ''New Bottles Old Medicine'' - Medicine Head

1970: ''Burnin' Red Ivanhoe'' - Burnin' Red Ivanhoe (co-produced w/ Tony Reeves)

1970: ''The Going's Easy'' - The Greatest Show on Earth

1970: ''Horizons'' - The Greatest Show on Earth

1970: ''The Asmoto Running Band'' - Principal Edwards Magic Theatre

1972: ''Bugger Off!'' - Stack Waddy

1976: ''Between The Poppy and the Snow'' - Robert MacLeod

Favourite music

John Peel wrote in his autobiography, ''Margrave of the Marshes'', that the band of which he owned the most records was The Fall. Regulars in the Festive 50, and easily recognised by vocalist Mark E. Smith's distinctive delivery, The Fall became synonymous with Peel's Radio 1 show through the 1980s and 1990s. Peel kept in contact with many of the artists he championed but only met Smith on two, apparently awkward, occasions.

The Misunderstood is the only band that Peel ever personally managed—he first met the band in Riverside, California in 1966 and convinced them to move to London. He championed their music throughout his career; in 1968, he described their 1966 single "I Can Take You to the Sun" as "the best popular record that's ever been recorded." and shortly before his death, he stated, "If I had to list the ten greatest performances I've seen in my life, one would be The Misunderstood at Pandora's Box, Hollywood, 1966 ... My god, they were a great band!"

His favourite single is widely known to have been "Teenage Kicks" by The Undertones; in an interview in 2001, he stated "There's nothing you could add to it or subtract from it that would improve it." In the same 2001 interview, he also listed "No More Ghettos in America" by Stanley Winston, "There Must Be Thousands" by The Quads and "Lonely Saturday Night" by Don French as being amongst his all-time favourites. He also described Lianne Hall as one of the great English voices.

A longer list of his favourite singles was revealed in 2005 when the contents of a wooden box in which he stored the records that meant the most to him were made public. The box was the subject of a television documentary, ''John Peel's Record Box''. Out of 130 vinyl singles in the box, 11 of them were by The White Stripes, more than any other band in the box.

In 1999 Peel presented a nightly segment on his programme titled the Peelennium, in which he played four recordings from each year of the 20th century.

Awards and honorary degrees

Peel was 11 times ''Melody Maker'''s DJ of the year, Sony Broadcaster of the Year in 1993, winner of the publicly-voted Godlike Genius Award from the ''NME'' in 1994, Sony Gold Award winner in 2002 and is a member of the Radio Academy Hall of Fame. At the NME awards in 2005 he was Hero of the Year and was posthumously given a special award for "Lifelong Service To Music". At the same event the "John Peel Award For Musical Innovation" was awarded to The Others.

He was awarded many honorary degrees including an MA from the University of East Anglia, doctorates (Anglia Polytechnic University and Sheffield Hallam University), various honorary degrees (University of Liverpool, Open University, University of Portsmouth, University of Bradford) and a fellowship of Liverpool John Moores University.

He was appointed an OBE in 1998, for his services to British music. In 2002, the BBC conducted a vote to discover the 100 Greatest Britons of all time, in which Peel was voted 43rd.

Legacy

Since his death various parties have recognised Peel's influence. A stage for new bands at the Glastonbury Festival, previously known simply as 'The New Bands Tent' was renamed 'The John Peel Stage' in 2005, while in 2008 Merseytravel announced they would be naming a train after him.

In 2009 the first blue plaque to bear his name was unveiled in Heywood, part of Rochdale, Greater Manchester to recognise Peel's contribution to the local music industry in financing Tractor's recording studios.

On 13 October 2005, the first "John Peel Day" was held to mark the anniversary of his last show. The BBC encouraged as many bands as possible to stage gigs on the 13th, and over 500 gigs took place in the UK and as far away as Canada and New Zealand, from bands ranging from Peel favourites New Order and The Fall, to many new and unsigned bands. A second John Peel day was held on 12 October 2006, and a third on 11 October 2007. The BBC had originally planned to hold a John Peel Day annually, however Radio 1 has not held any official commemoration of the event since 2007, though a number of gigs still take place around the country to mark the anniversary.

At the annual Gilles Peterson's World Wide Awards, the "John Peel Play More Jazz Award" award was named in his honour.

In his Heswall birthplace a pub was opened, named The Ravenscroft, in his honour.

A number of Peel-related compilation albums have been released since his death, including ''John Peel and Sheila: The Pig's Big 78s: A Beginner's Guide'', a project Peel started with his wife that was left unfinished when he died, and ''Kats Karavan: The History of John Peel on the Radio'' (2009), a 4 CD box set. Rock music critic Peter Paphides said in a review of the box set that "[s]ome artists remain forever associated with him", including ...And the Native Hipsters with "There Goes Concorde Again", and Ivor Cutler with "Jam". A sizable online community has also emerged dedicated to sharing recordings of his radio shows.

Peel's adult sons Tom and William Ravenscroft have followed him into radio DJing and music journalism, with an emphasis on spotting new talent.

In 2011, BBC 6 Music inaugurated the annual John Peel Lecture, named in honour of the DJ.

See also

List of Peel sessions

:Category:Peel Sessions recordings

Notes

References

Further reading

''Margrave of the Marshes'', Autobiography with Sheila Ravenscroft, Bantam Press, 2005. ISBN 0-593-05252-8

''The Olivetti Chronicles''. Articles for ''The Observer, Radio Times, The Guardian'' a.o., selected by his wife Sheila and their children. Bantam Press 2008. ISBN 9780593060612

External links

Radio 1's John Peel pages

John Peel Biography by BBC Radio 1 (PDF)

A sorted directory of links referencing Peel's working life

Category:BBC World Service Category:British music history Category:British radio DJs Category:British radio people Category:English radio personalities Category:Offshore radio broadcasters Category:Pirate radio personalities Category:English voice actors Category:Glastonbury Festival Category:Top of the Pops Category:English atheists Category:English vegetarians Category:Deaths from myocardial infarction Category:Old Salopians Category:People from Heswall Category:People from Mid Suffolk (district) Category:Officers of the Order of the British Empire Category:Royal Artillery soldiers Category:1939 births Category:2004 deaths

br:John Peel cs:John Peel cy:John Peel de:John Peel el:Τζον Πιλ es:John Peel fr:John Peel gl:John Peel it:John Peel he:ג'ון פיל nl:John Peel no:John Peel nn:John Peel pl:John Peel (prezenter) pt:John Peel ro:John Peel ru:Пил, Джон fi:John Peel sv:John Peel

name	Eric Kunze
background	solo_singer
born	1971
origin	San Diego, California
instrument	Vocals
occupation	Singer, actor
years active	1991–present }}

Eric Kunze (pronounced "Koon-zee"), born in 1971 in San Diego, California, is a Broadway actor and singer. He showed an early aptitude for singing and was involved in choir and theater at Rancho Buena Vista High School. He attended theater studies at University of California, Irvine. In his junior year, the students traveled to New York to expand their education through workshops. While there, Eric auditioned for and landed the role of Marius in ''Les Misérables'' at the age of 20. When not on the road, Kunze and his long-time friend Gina De Luca have a production company called Big City Broadway based in San Diego.

Kunze has had the pleasure of starring on Broadway in leading roles for the better part of his professional career. Performing in "The Music of Andrew Lloyd Webber" at the Kennedy Center, Mr. Kunze starred as "The Man" in the national touring company of Whistle Down the Wind; later, he starred as the title character in the national tour of ''Jesus Christ Superstar'' with veteran Carl Anderson after replacing Sebastian Bach.

He made his Broadway debut as Marius in ''Les Misérables'' (opposite Lea Salonga) and went on to star as Chris in Miss Saigon and then as Joe Hardy in Damn Yankees (with Jerry Lewis). Off-Broadway: Leopard's Leap, directed by Michael Rupert. International Tours: The Fantasticks, Pirates of Penzance, and the Mikado. He received rave reviews for the title role in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (Muny, KC Starlight, Sacramento Music Circus and San Diego CLO earning a San Diego Critics Circle Nomination) Other Regional (selected): Evita (LA Ovation Nomination), West Side Story, Into the Woods, the title role in Pippin (LA Robbie Award), South Pacific and the title role in The Who's Tommy in Los Angeles.

Kunze had voice training from Tony McDowell, Harry Garland and Bruce Kolb in Los Angeles. He received acting coaching from Uta Hagen and Alan Savage in New York, and from Drew Tombrello, Andrew Barnicle and Robert Cohen in Los Angeles. He received dance tutelage in New York from Buzz Miller, Thommie Walsh, Mary Rotella and Susan Stroman, and in Los Angeles, from Javier Velasco, Jack Tygett, Donale McKayle, El Gabriel and Bernard Johnson

Credits

Damn Yankees July, 2010 (Joe Hardy) Muny, St. Louis, MO

Music of the Night May, 2010 Soloist with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (Joseph) April, 2010 Civic Light Opera of South Bay Cities, Redondo Beach, CA

Miss Saigon (as Chris) February, 2010 Theater Under the Stars (TUTS) in Houston, Texas

Masquerade December 31, 2009 Soloist with the Cincinnati Pops

Music of the Night October 9–10, 2009 at the Orpheum Theater in Vancouver, B.C. With the Vancouver Symphony Pops, Bramwell Tovey, conducting, with soprano Betsy Wolfe.

Godspell (Jesus) July, 2009, Muny, St. Louis

Jesus Christ Superstar (Jesus) April, 2009, Civic Light Opera of South Bay Cities (Ovation nomination)

Miss Saigon (Chris), February 2009, North Carolina Theater

The Music of Andrew Lloyd Webber December 2008-January 2009 at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.

Evita (Che) August, 2008, Sacramento Music Circus, Sacramento, CA

Broadway -Damn Yankees as Joe Hardy (with Jerry Lewis) at the Marquis Theatre, Miss Saigon as Chris at the Broadway Theatre, and as Marius in Les Misérables at the Imperial Theatre.

National and international tours—in Whistle Down the Wind (as "The Man"), Jesus Christ Superstar (title role, replaced Sebastian Bach), Pippin (title role), Miss Saigon (Chris), The Fantasticks(Matt) and The Pirates of Penzance (Frederick).

Regional—in Godspell as (Jesus), Miss Saigon as (Chris), Evita (Che), West Side Story (Tony Pittsburgh), South Pacific (Lt. Joe Cable), Damn Yankees ( Joe Hardy), Jesus Christ Superstar (Jesus), Chess (Freddy), Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (Joseph), Into The Woods (Wolf), A Midsummer Night's Dream (Demetrius) and A Man For All Seasons (Master Richard).

Awards

2009 LA Ovation nomination (Best Actor in a Musical Large Theater) for his portrayal of Jesus in Jesus Christ Superstar

2008 IRNE Award winner (Best Actor - Musical Large Theater) for his portrayal of Joseph in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (Reagle) and The Man in the National Tour of Whistle Down the Wind

2008 LA Ovation nomination (Miss Saigon)

2002 LA Ovation nomination (Evita)

LA Robbie Award Lead Actor Musical (Pippin)

References

Category:1971 births Category:American male singers Category:American musical theatre actors Category:Living people

de:Eric Kunze