Mail Roundup – April 11, 2023

A roundup of messages we've received in the last two weeks

Vlad Palcu, 11.04.2023, 07:55

Hi everyone,

First of all, it’s Easter Week, so let me wish you
all Happy Holidays!

We did get
Easter greetings and wishes from many of our listeners, for which we are very
grateful. We thought it would be nice to share some of them with you.

A blessed and Happy Easter to you all as we
recall the passion of of Lord Jesus on the cross for us and His resurrection on
that first Sunday. (Art R. Womald, Canada)

I would like to wish all of you at Radio
Romania International (RRI) and all the RRI listeners a blessed Good Friday
filled with love and hope. May the sacrifice of Jesus on this Good Friday
remind us of the power of love and forgiveness! (Rabi Sankar Bosu, India)

May the love of Jesus fill your heart with
heavenly bliss and holy desires for now and forever. Wishing you a Holy Good
Friday! (Bidhan Chandra Sanyal, India)

We also got this
card from Adrian Micallef (Malta)

… one by Ron den
Boer (The Netherlands)

…and finally one
by Prithwiraj Purkayastha.

***

This week we also get to make a trip back in time, thanks to Jack Widner (USA), who sent us a recording of our broadcast in 1989, just as the Ceaușescu regime was being toppled in the anti-communist revolution. You can listen to the recording here:

https://archive.org/details/romanianNYE

This is the description:

This week we
also got a nice message from Peter Reuderink, who lives in Woerden (The
Netherlands). He shared with us this photo of the town windmill. (FYI – the
bike speaks to Peter’s other big hobby).

This week we got
a very nice message from Bidhan Chandra Sanyal (India), who shared with us
details about an important upcoming celebration. Here is his message:

Next
April 15 is our Bengali New Year. On the occasion of Happy New Year, I wish you
all my sincere love and best wishes. Probably the Pahela Baisakh celebration started during
the time of Emperor Akbar. At that time, everyone was obliged to pay all
taxes, fees and duties by the last day of Bengali Chaitra month. On the
next day ie Pahela Baisakh, the landowners used to entertain the residents of
their respective areas with sweets. Various festivals were organized on
this occasion. This festival has evolved into a social event which has changed
its form and reached this stage today. At that time the main event of
this day was the preparation of a Halkhata. Halkhata means a new account
book. In fact, Halkhata is the process of officially updating shop accounts on
the first day of the Bengali calendar. In villages, cities, commercial
areas, old accounts are closed and new accounts are opened. On the day of
Halkhata, shopkeepers entertain their customers with sweets. This practice is
still practiced to a large extent today. But with the change of time
comes the change in everything. And that is normal. Once upon a
time Jalsar came to Banedi houses on Pahela Baisakh. With his
friends. Famous beauties Baijira used to come to perform the
ceremony. Sarengi tunes and nupur choruses created a heavenly
atmosphere. The lake was filled with the smell of bell and jasmine
flowers. It used to ring in the ears – I will spread the seeds in
the morning on that morning of Baisakh. Along with that candle and chandelier’s
mind-boggling light. In the Rabindra era, Rabindranath’s hand came -
Come, O Baisakh, come – come. The arena of literature and
culture started to develop in Pahela Baisakh. Over time, some western
Happy New Year culture also entered the place. Let it happen, but you
have to be careful not to lose your individuality. Thus, every year on
New Year’s day, Bengalis welcome the new year with a clear mind, washing away
the wear and tear of the previous year. Times may have changed, but the
joy remains the same.

A big thanks to
all of you who’ve been commending our activity!

In my opinion this shows the biggest
advantage of shortwave radio – you can listen to in on the other side of the
world. I find it quite fascinating that it is possible to hear a broadcast from
Romania in the US on in Bangladesh. Also thank you for mentioning my report in
the programme. Jakub
Denisiuk (Poland)

We also got a
heart-warming letter from Hidemitsu Miyake from Japan. Here is what she wrote:

This year, spring has come a little earlier
than usual and cherry blossoms are already about to bloom, although it is still
mid-March. I like spring best in the four seasons. Spring is a season of
flowers and the symbol of this season is cherry flowers. There are many cherry
trees in Japan. When the cherry blossoms are in full bloom, people all around
the country have hanami parties. People lay out picnic blankets and eat and
drink alcohol under the trees. There are also places where you can enjoy
Yozakura (cherry blossoms at night). The trees are lit up and lanterns line the
pathways. There is a romantic appeal in the impermanence of cherry blossoms.

That’s simply
wonderful! Hidemitsu also sent us this photo and voucher catalog.

We also say
hello to Grant Skinner (England) who sent us a letter recently saying:

RRI is
an unlimited world of information which keeps me informed about news and
culture.

From the USA,
James Renfrew also sent us a letter saying:

I would appreciate it if you could confirm
my reception by an RRI QSL. We radio hobbyists enjoy collecting these
verifications as a way of demonstrating to our friends what we have heard from
interesting locations around the world. For your information, I first wrote to
Radio Bucharest, as your station was then called, in 1988, 35 years ago!

***

A big thanks to
everyone who took the time to write to us, share their impression and comments
and many other beautiful things. Our gratitude thus goes to Jayanta Chakrabarty
(India), Bbadrunnesa Busra (Bangladesh), Najim Uddin (India), Francis Lawlor
(Ireland), Anand Mohan Bain (India), Jon Collins (Ireland), Sanil Deep (India),
Siddhartha Bhattacharjee (India), Mr. Mafhuz (Bangladesh), Bidhan Chandra
Sanyal, Ivo Sesnic (Germany), Harald Süss (Austria), Abdul Mannan (Bangladesh),
Ian Morrison (China), Paul Freeman (UK), Fariya Fariya (Bangladesh), Misayo
Tanaka (Japan), N.S. Balamurali (India), Shin Makino (Japan), Michael Naven
(USA), Jaouad Saber (Morocco), Alan Gale (UK), Fabrizio Savini (Italy), Wasif
Ahmed (Bangladesh), Christer Brunström (Sweden), Besakha Akter (Bangladesh),
Allen Willie (Canada), Guido Panebianco (Italy), Madhab Chandra Sagour (India),
Adora Athoy (Bangladesh), R.S. Vijay Kumar (India), Chris Malboeuf (Canada),
Kraig Krist (USA), Seli Aktar (Bangladesh), Urbe Islam (Bangladesh), Muhammad
Shamim (India), Rajarshi Roy (India), Toshiki Tsuboi (Japan), Motokazu Katoh
(Japan), Anika Anne (Bangladesh), Ding Lu (China), Vabna Khatun (Bangladesh),
Kamia Akter (Bangladesh), K.P. Muneer (United Arab Emirates), Payel Ahmed
(Bangladesh), Renita Rini (Bangladesh), Yaaraa Ahmed (Bangladesh), Upoma Khatun
(Bangladesh), Jawahar Almeida (New Zealand), Prothama Prome (Bangladesh), Eti
Mone (Bangladesh), Karniz Fatema (Bangladesh), Prithwiraj Purkayastha (India),
Richard Lemke (Canada), Norihiko Ide (Japan), Nusrat Jahan (Bangladesh), Nick
Packham (UK), H.M. Tarek (Bangladesh), Feona Rahman (Bangladesh), Costa
Constantinides (Cyprus), Pradip Kundu (India), Debakamal Hazarika (India), Samina
Gull (Pakistan), Abdul Hameed Majroo (Pakistan), Apsara Ape (Pakistan), Ramon
Vargas Patron (Peru), Ram Babu Kumar (India), Larry Nelson (USA), Julie Sarmile
(Bangladesh), Andrew Kuznetsov (Latvia), Anton Hapsara (Indonesia), Sutomo
Huang (Indonesia), Sakae Onozawa (Japan), Akira Takei (Japan), Shohel Rana
Redoy (Bangladesh), Nicolas Beaney-Weaver (England).

***

A lot of you
have been writing asking to email them programme and frequency schedules. While
we no longer have custom-made frequency and programme prints, we will try to
send Word documents to anyone asking in the future. In the meantime, please
refer to our website for future reference.

Here is the full
list of 2023 summer frequencies.

RRI on shortwaves: summer frequencies 2023

We’ve had a
patch of really bad weather in Romania, with strong winds and a lot of
rainfall. This may account for what many of you have signaled as quite poor
listening conditions. The forecast for the week ahead looks brighter, so
hopefully things will improve.

***

As many of you
have already noticed, we have introduced text-to-speech software-generated
announcements in our programmes.

Our use of A.I. voiceover
software is merely a one-time experiment, whereby we try to keep in tune
with the latest technological advancements and what other public broadcasters
are doing.

We regard such software as a support for
journalists, allowing them to invest more time in the development of creative,
value-added content, while these A.I. voiceovers can be used in routine, less
important matters such as station announcements or the transcript of audio /
video files. This isn’t any different from what other media are using in terms
of text-to-speech software

We will be posting some of your reactions in the
upcoming roundup, so check in again in two weeks’ time!

Until then, 73!