That treasure is also an important resource in socio-economic development, a link connecting the great national unity bloc. Therefore, preserving and effectively promoting the cultural values of ethnic groups has become a consistent and continuous policy of Lao Cai.
Focusing on preserving cultural values
According to Duong Tuan Nghia, Deputy Director of the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism of Lao Cai, the province has a border length of more than 180km with China. In recent decades, cultural exchange and communication activities have taken place in a regular and continuous manner.
Over the past 30 years, Lao Cai Province has always paid attention to and issued many mechanisms and policies to create favourable conditions for research, collection, restoration, preservation, and promotion of cultural values of ethnic groups.
Lao Cai is a province that has early applied the perspective of sustainable development to the work of preserving cultural heritage, associated with environmental protection.
In addition to the province's internal investment resources, Lao Cai Province has received funding from the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism for many projects under the National Target Programme on Culture in preserving traditional ethnic villages and hamlets such as: the project to preserve traditional H’Mong ethnic villages in Cat Cat Village, San Sa Ho Commune, Sa Pa District, in 2009-2010; the project to preserve traditional Ha Nhi ethnic villages in Choan Then Village, Y Ty Commune, Bat Xat District, in 2019-2020; projects under the government's Program 1719; and projects related to the restoration and embellishment of national relics, projects to preserve traditional festivals of ethnic groups, preserve folk songs, folk dances, folk music, etc.
Le Cuong Manh, Deputy Head of the Department of Monument Management and Tourism Development of Bao Yen District, said that Bao Ha is a commune in Region II of Bao Yen District, located on the left bank of the Red River, a cultural relic centre featuring 2 national relics — Bao Ha Temple and Co Be Tan An Temple — and 2 provincial relics — Lang Luc Temple and Hai Co Temple.
Bao Ha Temple has invested in restoration, embellishment, and expansion to grow more and more spacious and become the magnificent location it is today, a famous spiritual tourist destination.
At the Thuong Temple area, a famous cultural relic in Lao Cai City, Head of the Lao Cai City Relic Management Board Ngo Ngoc Ha said that the unit has proactively preserved and kept historical values associated with the content of the relic, as well as inventoried artifacts and supervised the donation of artifacts in a scientific, effective manner, in accordance with the traditional way of creation, thus ensuring the original elements of the relic in accordance with Vietnamese customs and traditions.
In addition to the artifacts that are worshiped together, shown in the annual inventory records of artifacts stored directly at the specialised department, the Relic Management Board has also proactively built a supplementary book of artifacts by day, month, quarter, and year to monitor and promptly report on the increase and decrease of artifacts at relic sites, avoiding activities that affect and damage artifacts such as burning incense with smoke, colourful painting.
The work of building and training human resources for the conservation and promotion of cultural heritage is also a focus. From a very early age, Lao Cai Province has paid attention to discovering many artisans who hold cultural heritage in the ethnic minority communities in the province, making statistics and building dossiers to propose the recognition of the title of Folk Artisan — a collaborator in preserving, conserving, and teaching about intangible cultural heritage in the community.
Lao Cai has issued a number of mechanisms on discovering, recognising and placing orders for the team of folk artisans in collecting, preserving, teaching and promoting the quintessence and cultural heritage.
The number of folk artisans in the province is quite large, with deep knowledge in many fields of knowledge and folk culture, making important contributions to the work of preserving, teaching and promoting indigenous cultural values.
As of 2024, Lao Cai has seen 2 artisans awarded the title of People’s Artisan by the state, 25 artisans awarded the title of Meritorious Artisan by the state, and 5 artisans awarded the title of Folk Artisan by the Viet Nam Folk Arts Association.
Every year, the province assigns specialised units to review and select 5-7 qualified artisans to develop a dossier to propose the title of People’s Artisan and Meritorious Artisan.
Harmonising culture with tourism
Lao Cai is increasingly attracting a large number of tourists and becoming an attractive destination in the Northwest region; gradually bringing income and benefits to the cultural subjects of ethnic groups, encouraging the community to preserve and protect precious traditional cultural values. Ha Van Thang, former Director of Lao Cai Provincial Department of Tourism, said: “Preserving and promoting the value of intangible cultural heritage is the basis for forming and creating core values for developing unique humanistic tourism products, contributing to attracting a large number of tourists.”
In recent years, Lao Cai has always been leading the Northwestern provinces in the number of tourists. In 2019, the number of visitors to Lao Cai reached nearly 5 million, with tourism revenue reaching 19.8 trillion VND; by the end of 2024, the number of tourists to Lao Cai reached more than 8 million, with revenue of more than 27 trillion VND. Tourism has gradually become a key economic sector of the province.
However, the process of preserving cultural values also faces many difficulties and obstacles, especially in terms of material conditions and human resources.
The human resources for managing relics at all levels are still thin, lacking experience, and not commensurate with practical requirements. The majority of the staff working at the relic management boards have not received professional training and have limited experience.
The time to carry out procedures for agreement, appraisal, and approval of relic restoration must go through many steps, causing difficulties for restoration, embellishment, and mobilising resources for restoration.
Nguyen Cuong Manh, Deputy Head of the Department of Monument Management and Tourism Development of Bao Yen District (where the famous relic cluster of Bao Ha Temple is located), said that currently, some relics in this area are gradually deteriorating, while the funding for relic restoration is still low compared to the demand.
Ha Van Thang said that preserving the core values of cultural heritage is difficult, related to the team of artisans — those who hold, transmit and continue traditional cultural knowledge. However, it is difficult but must be done because only by preserving and conserving culture can we preserve everything.
In response to the above issue, Duong Tuan Nghia, Deputy Director of the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism of Lao Cai, emphasised a number of solutions:
First, promote the role of artisans and village elders. In each locality, each ethnic group builds a team of excellent artisans, folk artisans and collaborators to preserve and promote the value of cultural heritage.
Second, always identify the preservation and promotion of cultural heritage values must be associated with tourism development, with the goal of “turning heritage into assets” and considering “tourism as the midwife of cultural heritage”. As such, throughout the province’s projects, the tasks of preserving cultural heritage will always associated with the tourism spearhead.
Third, focus on building cultural heritage into unique tourism products; especially focus on building and establishing clubs and village and hamlet art teams associated with community tourism development.
