The emissaries of Vietnamese culture
WVR - The overseas Vietnamese (OV) communities are the emissaries upholding and promoting Vietnam’s cultural values in the world…
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| A Vietnamese class in Ekaterinburg, Russia. (Photo: VNA) |
Conserving unique national cultural values is an issue that is becoming more and more crucial to nations and their people. To be able to both protect the culture and promote the “soft power” of culture at the same time amidst development and international integration is also an important mission in the “Cultural development strategy until 2030.”
Referring to promoting Vietnam’s cultural values in the world, I am reminded of a familiar saying: “Every Vietnamese living overseas is an emissary of Vietnamese culture.”
The OV community is an integral part of the Vietnamese nation. Vietnamese citizens living abroad are encouraged and created all favourable conditions by the State to uphold and promote the Vietnamese cultural identity, maintain solidarity and friendship with family and homeland, and engage in the development of the nation.
The Politburo's Conclusion No. 12-KL/TW regarding overseas Vietnamese (OV) affairs in the new situation urges to “diversify activities that support compatriots overseas in preserving and promoting Vietnamese cultural identity and traditions. Enhance collaboration with the host authorities, improve the efficiency of Vietnamese teaching and learning…”
With deep understanding of the mission of a “cultural emissary”, OVs have become more and more aware of the importance of upholding cultural identity and Vietnamese in the heart of the host authority.
That is why hundreds of organizations often contact and collaborate with Vietnam’s representative offices abroad to open Vietnamese classes, clubs for folk music, composing poetry, photography, sports, traditional martial arts, music groups, etc.
That is why dozens of Vietnamese schools and classes are sponsored by the State to be built, operated and managed; and hundreds of teachers are given support in salary and training…
It can be seen that the movement of teaching and learning Vietnamese amongst OVs has clearly developed in terms of both content and method of communication, encouraging online teaching and learning, and promoting the “Vietnamese-learning-family” model… Vietnamese is also recognized and taught as a second language in high schools of some countries and territories with large Vietnamese populations such as the US, Czech Republic, Taiwan (China), etc.
On this occasion, I recall my frequent “multilingual” meetings with children whose parents work at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Every time they saw each other, there would always be some of them speaking Russian, Japanese or German. Many of them even spoke English like they are natives…
It would sound as if they were at a United Nations conference(?!) The reason is simply because their parents used to work at Vietnam’s representative missions in the locality where the language is spoken.
It is obvious that the diplomats’ terms working abroad at the representative missions impact their children’s language development. Oftentimes, children have opportunities to study in the language of the host countries, and naturally, many of them will stick with those languages for the rest of their lives.
Here I think to myself, when foreign diplomats come to work in Vietnam, they and their children also have the chance to immerse themselves in Vietnamese culture, learn Vietnamese or participate in Vietnamese programmes… Those experiences will surely become a memorable part of their lives when they return to their home country or travel to other nations.
That is when they themselves are the foreign emissaries of Vietnamese culture.
(Translated by Tue Anh)
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