2011 Marks Successful Year of Vietnamese Heritages

2011 was a successful year of Vietnam in terms of cultural diplomacy, as more heritages were recognized by UNESCO, said a senior official.

 

Deputy Foreign Minister Nguyen Thanh Son, Chairman of the Vietnam National Commission for UNESCO, made the comment at a conference to review the commission’s 2011 performance in Hanoi on January 10.

 

Last year, the commission submitted dossiers and successfully campaigned for UNESCO’s recognition of t he Citadel of Hồ Dynasty as world cultural heritage and Xoan singing, a vocal art of villages in the ancestral land of Phú Thọ, as Intangible Cultural Heritage in need of Urgent Protection.

 

With these results, Vietnam has more cultural heritages honored by the world.

 

The country’s UNESCO-recognized heritages were introduced in many events, including Vietnamese Culture Days and Weeks in Russia, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Denmark and Norway.

 

The doctor laureate steles in Van Mieu – Quoc Tu Giam (the Temple of Literature ) in Hanoi was included in the world documentary heritage list of UNESCO’s Global Memory of the World Program after being listed as a documentary heritage in the Asia-Pacific region.

 

Also in the year, the commission submitted the dossiers of the Buddhist sutra-carved woodblocks at Vĩnh Nghiêm pagoda and “Hoa Lư thi tập”, a collection of poems on the ancient capital of Hoa Lư, to UNESCO for recognition as documentary heritages in the Asia-Pacific region.

 

In addition, several heritage preservation projects were implemented in 2011, including a US $1.2 million project to conserve the Thăng Long- Hanoi cultural heritage area funded by the Japanese Trust Fund and an Italy-funded US 1.5 million project to restore My Son towers.