Establishing Thua Thien Hue as Distinctive Cultural Hub of Asia

Thua Thien Hue is a land of civilization, with a rich history, unique culture and glorious revolutionary tradition. This place is home to many cultural heritages, historical relics and hundreds of festivals imbued with national cultural identity and converges potential strengths to become a unique cultural center of the country and Asia in the near future.

Cultural treasures and unique festivals

Thua Thien Hue has a massive tangible cultural heritage system with nearly 1,000 relics, historical and revolutionary sites and religious relics. The province is also proud to be home to a unique cultural space (tangible and intangible), a cultural "treasure" that represents Vietnamese culture. Among them, the most prominent are the Complex of Hue Monuments, Hue Royal Court Music recognized by UNESCO as a World Cultural Heritage, Woodblocks of the Nguyen Dynasty, Royal Records of the Nguyen Dynasty and Literature on Hue Royal Architecture recognized by UNESCO as documentary heritages. The former capital is also a place that preserves unique culinary art values with over 1,300 rich and attractive elegant royal and folk dishes.

In addition to tangible heritages, Thua Thien Hue is home to rich and diverse intangible cultural values with scholarly royal performing arts, decorative arts, fine arts, and culinary arts, customs and traditions.

In particular, with more than 500 festivals of all kinds, including royal festivals, folk festivals, traditions, and religious festivals that have existed for many generations and are associated with cultural values of each locality, Thua Thien Hue is honored as the land of festivals (Hue City is the festival city of Vietnam). The former capital of Hue has more than 100 unique and distinctive folk festivals and traditional festivals preserved, restored and promoted. Typical examples include Hue Royal Festival, Buddha's Birthday, Hue Nam Temple Festival and Avalokitesvara Festival).

Recently, Thua Thien Hue was voted by tourists as an attractive destination with uniquely branded products like “Hue - Capital of Cuisine”, “Hue - Capital of Vietnamese Ao Dai” and “Hue - Festival City”. These are invaluable potential advantages for the province on the path to becoming a centrally run city, featured by “culture, heritage, ecology, landscape, environmental friendliness and smartness”.

Unique cultural center of the nation and the region

Resolution 54 of the Politburo and Resolution of the Provincial Party Congress set out an important goal: Building and developing Thua Thien Hue into a centrally run city on the foundation of preserving and promoting Hue heritage values and Hue cultural identity. By 2030, Thua Thien Hue will be one of the largest and unique centers of culture, tourism and specialized healthcare in Southeast Asia.

Mr. Phan Thanh Hai, Director of the Thua Thien Hue Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism, said: Sticking to this goal, the province has fostered the task of preserving and promoting cultural heritage values with many specific measures and tasks. The department advised the Provincial People’s Council and the Provincial People’s Committee to promulgate investment support policies for repairing, embellishing and restoring relics outside the Complex of Hue Monuments until 2030; deployed the “Hue - Ao Dai Capital” Project; collected, digitized, preserved, restored and promoted the value of Sino-Nom documents; preserved and promoted traditional cultural heritage values of ethnic minorities in association with tourism development.

Specially, after four years of implementing Resolution 54 of the Politburo, the Provincial People's Committee approved the Project “Hue Culture - Hue People: Preservation and Development”. Currently, the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism is actively coordinating with the Thua Thien Hue Historical Science Association to carry out the project to contribute to the comprehensive development of Thua Thien Hue culture and people.

The department will continue to carry out tasks and solutions proposed by Resolution 54, based on local realities. At the same time, the agency will promote communications and raise awareness about the position and role of culture in innovation and sustainable development.

The department will focus on mobilizing resources to preserve traditional cultural values and heritages in an original and consistent way; support and facilitate the completion of the cultural museum system, especially non-public museums, to enrich cultural institutions of Hue City.

The department will foster the development of tourism and services; develop cultural industry based on exploiting and maximizing the province's advantages in culture and heritage; and creatively and flexibly adapt to Thua Thien Hue tourism development in the new situation.

Last but not least, the department will strengthen state management solutions for cultural activities; supplement and improve mechanisms and policies in cultural and tourism development; improve professional qualifications of cultural staffs; and build a mechanism to encourage talents, especially adequate remunerations to attract high-quality human resources working in culture, arts and tourism sectors.

By Hoai Nam, Vietnam Business Forum