(VOVworld) – The Hanoi Department of Culture and Sports held a contest entitled “Heritage of my generation” on October 22. This was part of a program to promote traditional vocational villages.

The program “Experiencing Vietnam’s intangible cultural heritages in 2016” involved 25 teams of Hanoi students conducting activities in Khuoc village, which specializes in singing cheo or traditional opera, and 5 craft villages: Me Tri village which produces young rice, Bat Trang pottery village, Thach Xa bamboo dragonfly village, Dao Thuc water puppetry village, and Dong Ho folk painting village.

Young foreigners visit Bat Trang ceramic village in Hanoi

Following those activities, the teams began projects related to vocational villages. Organizers selected the 6 best projects to participate in the contest “Heritage of my generation”. Contestants gave presentations of their projects and outlined plans for further development. Bui Thi Thuy Linh represents a team of students from the University of National Economics, who won first prize for their project of advertising Dong Ho folk paintings on a website:“Our website offers an interactive program for making Dong Ho folk paintings. The software lets young people create virtual paintings stimulating a love of fine-arts and folk arts as spelled out by our website’s slogan: “To know Dong Ho folk paintings is to understand Vietnamese culture.”

Nguyen The Nghi, Head of the Dao Thuc water puppetry troupe in Dong Anh district, Hanoi, commented on the 3^rd prize project by students from the University of Foreign Trade promoting the water puppetry village: “The project aims to help Dao Thuc village by developing a website and promoting the village’s water puppetry on a social network. We are very happy and hopeful that the young people will contribute to the popularity of water puppetry in our village and in Vietnam.”

Nguyen Khac Loi, chief organizer and deputy director of the Hanoi Department of Culture and Sports, said the program “Experiencing Vietnam’s intangible cultural heritages in 2016” helps young people understand their role in preserving the nation’s thousand-year-old  intangible heritages.