Tao Quan 2019: Laughing till tears with Vietnamese language reform

On the evening of January 25, the first rehearsal of the 2019 Tao Quan program took place at the Hanoi Friendship Cultural Palace with the participation of comedians Quoc Khanh, Tu Long, Cong Ly, Xuan Bac, Van Dung, Quang Thang, Trung Ruoi, and Minh Tit.

The program started at 8:20 p.m. with the opening performance of two actors Trung Ruoi and Minh Tit in the role of Pho Thien Loi, next to a parody performance by Nam Tao (Xuan Bac).

With a duration of more than 5 hours, many hot topics and events in the education, transportation, and economic sectors such as: cheating in exams in Ha Giang, slapping students, dozens of people killed by trucks, public vehicles used for personal purposes, Vietnamese language reform... through a humorous lens were presented by the artists, surprising and delighting the audience in the first rehearsal night.

The performances of Trung Ruoi and Minh Tit this year also received a lot of applause from the audience. Both of them had funny juggling acts when scaring the Traffic Gods (Tu Long) and how to extort gold and money from the Economic Gods (Quang Thang).

Another funny point in the 2019 Tao Quan rehearsal was the performance of the Traffic God (Tu Long).

Still improvising and sublimating with Xuan Bac, besides his forte singing, Tao Giao Thong made the audience laugh until they cried with lines about Vietnamese language reform.

All the words "road" must be mispronounced as "oh hole". Roads are called "oh hole sa"; traffic jams are called "oh hole"; main roads are called "oh hole" o hole main road, tea "oh hole", urine disease "oh hole"...

According to the Traffic God, traffic jams in the lower world are caused by people participating in illegal dumping with a lack of awareness, sometimes they even go into one-way illegal dumping. People compete to go, causing collisions and fights in the middle of illegal dumping, people consider illegal dumping as their home...

What's new this year was kept secret by director Do Thanh Hai until the last minute. The last part of the script is the scene where the Taos are forced to look in the mirror to reveal their bad habits and bad deeds of the past year.

Pushed by Nam Tao to look in the mirror, the Traffic God received many rounds of applause with his silly acting, the Traffic God made jokes to avoid facing the truth. Or the witty lines that the artists created and refined one by one made the whole audience laugh non-stop. It can be said that this is the part that got the most laughter and applause in the 2019 Tao Quan script.

This year, Tao Quan not only made the audience laugh but also moved them and brought them to tears with the ironic story of a poor household that still had to apply for a certificate of poverty in order to receive subsidies from the State.

The image of a farmer in patched clothes looking for her grandson to be the Kitchen God just to have him confirm that he was a poor household so that he could receive an additional 220,000 VND in monthly allowance. 110,000 VND was for medical treatment, and the remaining 110,000 VND was for food for the whole month made the whole audience feel down.

It was even more heartbreaking when the old lady confessed that she wished she would get sick many times a month so she wouldn't have to eat, which would save money... this made many viewers cry, and actor Cong Ly, who plays Bac Dau, also sobbed and turned away because of emotion.

In addition to the issues that attracted audiences during the year, prominent issues in culture, sports, cinema... were also exploited by artists with humorous and witty statements that made the audience laugh with delight, such as: "Nowadays, only officials take people's money, people taking money from officials is a big crime..."; "In the big room, the Jade Emperor whispered small stories, small stories about big issues".