Mario Popcorn and the desire to spread the love of Vietnamese tourism

Hoang Dung - a guy from Quang Nam born in 1993 - chose to share clips on the Mario Popcorn channel about destinations that are addresses and religious places of worship.

Hoang Dung chooses to share kindness and architectures and destinations imbued with spiritual culture on his YouTube channel - Photo: NVCC

The Mario Popcorn channel currently has more than 174,000 followers. "Mario is a video game that everyone born in the 80s and 90s knows. Many people say that Dung's face is as funny and playful as Mario. Popcorn was my favorite food when I was a kid," Hoang Dung explained about the funny name of his YouTube channel.

It is volunteer activities that help me gain more life experience and become more confident when going to work. I hope that through each thing I do, I can spread positive energy and love to others, so that those living in poverty feel cared for.

HOANG DUNG

Making Mario Popcorn Channel, loving every place in Vietnam

Hoang Dung said that the Mario Popcorn channel is his career, because it is a passion that he wants to devote more to. Dung said that sometimes it doesn't even make enough money to support himself, but he can't give it up.

Living far from home, Hoang Dung still has a special place for his hometown. In the first episode on his own travel channel, he made a film about the place where he grew up - Bang Am peak in Dai Hong commune, Dai Loc district (Quang Nam).

Dung said: "Since I was young, I studied at the foot of the mountain and heard a lot about Bang Am peak. It was very difficult to get to the top of the mountain because the forest road was treacherous. When I was studying journalism, I did two reports on this peak."

Many episodes were completed by this friend during his student days such as the legend of My Son relic site (Quang Nam), the legend of Our Lady of La Vang ( Quang Tri ) and Dung used 3D visual effects to tell stories in each episode.

"I am planning for the next vlog episodes to learn more about the culture of craft villages in remote areas of Quang Nam such as Dong Giang Heaven Gate tourist area or gong culture in this province," Dung boasted.

Every place he goes, he picks up many things. What Dung is most proud of is contributing to spreading the pride of each hometown to audiences near and far, helping viewers know and love their country more. For example, when the episode about Ba Den Mountain in Tay Ninh was broadcast, many people in Tay Ninh sent messages to Dung's channel: "That's my hometown, so beautiful, so proud."

And the episodes about other lands are the same, there is a common feeling of joy when seeing one's homeland on the screen, reaching many people. Those things become the motivation for the owner of Popcorn Mario channel to travel more, to be able to introduce the lands related to religion that are everywhere in his country.

Hoang Dung joins in planting trees in Dong Nai - Photo: NVCC

Learn from the journey

In just a short time, Dung's channel has turned 4 years old, and has been welcomed by audiences of many ages, both domestically and internationally. The cultural and spiritual tourism topics that are currently popular are conveyed in a youthful form, and the stories are told in 2D and 3D to further attract viewers.

Each clip provides more reference information for viewers because he also has to carefully study related issues each time he does it, including notes that can be useful for customers to have more options before deciding. This is quite important because sometimes the experiential travel will not be complete because customers have to pay a higher amount for a service that does not need the amount that has been spent.

From some reviews of famous travel sites, Dung said that Vietnamese tourism still has a lot of potential because there was once a comment that "Magical Vietnam" is one of the 10 must-see destinations. This is also recognized, saying that the beauty of Vietnam is like "a sleeping princess who has just woken up" and of course it is necessary to make that princess shine with her beauty.

But like many opinions in the media, this frequent traveler also said that what needs to be done is to immediately end the situation of high prices and "ripping off" tourists that still exists somewhere, waiting for the opportunity of a tourism mindset that focuses on immediate profits.

Dung said he had the opportunity to travel to many places, meet many tourists and observed that they often asked for prices. They asked not only to know the price but also with the mindset of investigation, afraid of being "ripped off".

"Sometimes I also use services at high prices at tourist destinations. I think we should sell services to tourists wherever they come from at the same price as the locals. This will improve the image of Vietnamese tourism in the eyes of international friends ," Dung shared.

A warm heart

This 9X guy also especially loves volunteer work. When he was a student at Da Nang University of Education, Hoang Dung was the head of the Dandelion Charity Club. They often organized fundraising movie screenings to visit and give gifts to disabled children and people in difficult circumstances. Not only that, Dung and his friends also established a hot blood club with the support of the Red Cross Society of Hoa Minh ward, Lien Chieu district (Da Nang). Regardless of day or night, whenever the hospital encountered a case of urgent blood need, Hoang Dung's group would connect students to donate immediately. Dung himself also donated blood many times in cases where a patient needed blood urgently but could not find a suitable person with the right blood type. Dung honestly said that at first he was scared, but saving someone felt very happy and joyful, gradually he got used to it, and fell in love with donating blood without realizing it.

No matter the view, pay the price quickly

Asked Dung, in reality, there are many YouTubers who aim to attract views regardless, what do you think about that? Dung laughed and said that he knew of some cases of attracting views with sensational, offensive clips, but there were also many channels like that that had to pay the price when the community turned their backs on them and then had their channels locked.

Dung said that in a context where everyone can create their own channel, the strictness of the audience is a pressure for content creators to be more alert to always create clean and serious content.

"If you want to like and view without regard, the consequences will come very quickly. The public today are very thoughtful viewers and they have their own criteria to evaluate personal channels on social networks, which is not wrong," Dung shared.

Tuoitre.vn