Just a few years ago, whenever difficulties in cultural activities were mentioned, Vien Dinh Village (Dong Lo Commune, Ung Hoa District) was often named. Due to lack of funds, the construction of cultural houses stalled for many years. Every time there is a meeting or community activity, the people here must organise it at the village communal house.
The story of a place that used to be “backward”
Now, such backwardness is an old story. Coming to Vien Dinh, in the morning, the evening, or on weekends, everyone sees the village cultural house always bustling with singing and sports competitions. Vien Dinh Village cultural house has an area of over 700 m², a spacious campus, a reading room with many books. The cultural house operates according to a self-governing model, with three clubs at the same time: art club, reading club, and sports club. Along with the improvement of cultural life, the environmental landscape is constantly improving.
Nguyen Van Tho, a resident, said: “We people have joined hands to preserve the rows of ancient trees, ponds, water surfaces in the locality... to become a green and clean living space for the countryside. People also contributed tens of millions of dong to build pond embankments, erect iron railings, pour concrete on sidewalks, place stone benches, build pots to plant more trees, to create a clean and beautiful landscape...”
Ung Hoa used to be a locality ranked in the "bottom group" of the city in many activities. But, when coming to Ung Hoa now, everyone is surprised by the change, as the houses are spacious and the roads are clean and beautiful. The movement of the whole people uniting to build a cultural life is not only reflected in statistics, it has also has entered the daily lives of the people. 145/145 villages in the district have cultural houses, and cultural and sports clubs to gather people.
Looking back at previous years, when the Hanoi Department of Culture and Sports organised the contest "Keeping alleys green, clean, decorating beautiful streets", many people thought that localities would only choose a few roads, or villages to decorate for the contest. However, the Department of Culture and Sports hopes that the organisation of the contest will be a “fire starter” to spread the movement.
Deputy Head of the Department of Building Cultural Lifestyle and Family (Hanoi Department of Culture and Sports) Nguyen Thanh Tuyen shared: “The cultural title is not something far away, but we create a cultural environment. At home, there is the model of a Cultural Family, in society, there are models of Cultural Villages, Cultural Neighbourhoods, Cultural Agencies, etc. To improve the cultural environment, there must be cultural spaces for the people.
Along with that, the landscape environment must also be rich in humanity. Maintaining the landscape environment not only creates a clean and beautiful landscape, but also contributes to “training” each person’s lifestyle. When the landscape is clean and beautiful, people must think about littering. Therefore, a cultural and civilised lifestyle is gradually improved”.
In Ba Vi, from the contest "Keeping alleys green, clean, decorating streets beautifully", the district has concretised it into the contest "Building and maintaining bright, green, clean, beautiful, safe villages, alleys" which has been continuously implemented for many years. People see the benefits and actively respond.
From the beginning of 2024 until now, the district has mobilised more than 22.9 billion VND to decorate village roads and alleys, plant 13,461 new trees, and install more than 2,000 security cameras, while 228 households in the villages donated land to expand rural roads. A series of flower roads have appeared. All 303 village cultural houses in Ba Vi have been installed with free Wi-Fi, with the main source of funding being contributed by the people.
Although it is not yet a “typical example”, from the beginning of 2024 until now, Phu Chau Commune has socialised 400 million VND to carry out the contest to build and maintain bright, green, clean, beautiful and safe villages, hamlets and alleys. With the money and working days contributed, people in Phu Chau have continued to build welcome gates, replace lighting systems, paint murals, install convex mirrors to ensure traffic safety, plant flowers and trees on the roads, etc. The face of Phu Chau is growing increasingly clean and beautiful.
Cultural officials often say: If you want to learn about changes in the cultural environment, you should not only go to "typical" districts such as Ba Dinh District, Long Bien District, or districts leading the way in new rural areas such as Dan Phuong, Dong Anh, Gia Lam, but also go to remote areas and difficult areas. Indeed, the remote areas of Hanoi are vivid proof of the achievements in building the cultural life of Hanoi City.
“Raising the level” of criteria
The criteria of the movement “All people unite to build a cultural life” are common criteria. But life is always colourful. Therefore, each locality relies on its own characteristics and strengths to choose its own methods and spearhead directions to spread to other activities. And good methods have the power to spread beyond its own locality.
For example, when implementing the contest “Building and maintaining bright, green, clean, beautiful, and safe villages, hamlets, and alleys”, Dan Phuong District has many initiatives and innovations, such as organising monthly judging and promptly encouraging good methods, while Dan Phuong is also at the forefront of mobilising people to contribute money to install lighting equipment. This experience is learned by other localities.
For cultural houses, institutions are the “shell”, activities are the “core”. Dong Anh District is a prominent locality in exploiting cultural houses throughout the area. Based on the conditions of each locality, cultural and sports clubs are being established.
In places with strengths in traditional arts, a Tuong Club is established (such as in villages in the communes of Co Loa and Xuan Non) or a traditional music club, in places with a developed poetry movement, a poetry club is established, or in some places a dance club. As for sports clubs, almost every village and hamlet features a very vibrant movement.
Tran Thi Van Anh, Deputy Director of the Hanoi Department of Culture and Sport, shared: “The City Party Committee always pays attention to preserving and promoting cultural identity, building the culture of Thang Long - Hanoi people through the implementation of Program No.06-CTr/TU (formerly Programme 04) on Cultural Development, improving the quality of human resources, building elegant and civilised Hanoians.
“In which, building culture and people is an important and consistent factor. With the characteristic of being the capital of a thousand years of culture, Hanoi always focuses on its own unique characteristics. In 2023, the Government issued Decree No. 86/2023/ND-CP on the framework of standards and procedures, procedures, and dossiers for considering and awarding the titles of Cultural Family, Cultural Village/Residential Group/Commune/Ward/Town.
“The Decree clearly states that the Provincial People's Committee shall specify the criteria for recognizing the titles; guide the methods for evaluating and reviewing emulation titles. Such decentralization will be the basis for the city to issue specific criteria.”
From decentralisation to the city, the Hanoi Department of Culture and Sports is coordinating with districts, towns, and related units to collect opinions from experts, local authorities, and people to advise the city to issue specific regulations on criteria for recognising cultural titles.
As a person directly involved in mobilising, inspecting and supervising the implementation of cultural life building in localities, Head of the Department of Cultural Lifestyle and Family Building Bui Minh Hoang said: “Localities have many good ways of building cultural environments, such as: Models of green, clean and beautiful roads and alleys; smart village models; and models of preserving and promoting heritage values, protecting the environment associated with tourism development.
“On this occasion, we will advise the city to include detailed regulations in recognising cultural titles; or encourage localities to implement. Thus, when implementing Decree 86/2023/ND-CP in practice, the construction of cultural life and the construction of cultural models will be elevated, bearing the characteristics of Hanoi.”
Along with the construction of cultural models, the implementation of the Code of Conduct in public places is having a clear positive effect on the construction of culture - people of Hanoi. However, there are still many difficulties in creating a cultural environment in the community, and the current difficulties are concentrated in large urban areas.
In many places, each apartment building has up to several hundred households, equivalent in size to a residential group, but there is no corresponding cultural space or community living space. This poses a problem that Hanoi needs to soon resolve.
