by Gemma Cruz-Araneta
<gcruz@i-manila.com.ph>

Gemma Cruz-Araneta was in North Vietnam in 1968 (yes, 1968!) She spent a month in Hanoi, Thanh Hoa and Phat Diem. In Thanh Hoa, Araneta met Nguyen Thi Hanh who was a people's militia leader. Her unit had just gunned down an American plan, capturing the pilot alive. The two young women were both in their twenties then. Today Nguyen Thi Hanh is Vietnam's Minister of Labor, Disabled and Social Services while Araneta served as Minister of Tourism in the past administration. Araneta wrote a book about her trip Hanoi Diary in 1968. She is now a commentator contributing regularly to "the Manilla Bulletin Online" at www.mb.com.ph

Conserving Hanoi

by Gemma C. Araneta


LAST week, I went to Hanoi only to realize that if we do not put our act together, Vietnam may very well overtake the Philippines, sooner than you expect, and in sectors just as crucial as rice production. Today, Hanoi is a city that hardly sleeps. Rows of retail outlets spill out of vintage "tube houses" invading portions of sidewalks, jostling with cafés and outdoor eateries, flower and fruit stalls or rows of parked motor scooters. We pedestrians had no choice but ambulate on the streets, in a perpetual jaywalk, ducking and darting among hundreds of careening motos and cyclos that beeped and honked incessantly. It was a typical Bayani Fernando nightmare.

That was probably why an urban conservation symposium was sponsored by the Goethe-Institut Hanoi, in cooperation with the Department of Conservation and Museology, Ministry of Culture and Information, the Hanoi University of Civil Engineering and the Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany. The conference theme was "The Old City of Hanoi as a Challenge to Urban Conservation." Architects, Sociologists, Urban Planners and Conservationists from Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines were invited to share their experiences and expertise with Vietnamese counterparts.

Vietnam has had a Cultural Heritage Law since 1981, but Mme To Thi Tuan (Mp and Deputy Director of the Old Hanoi City Administration) is alarmed that this is not being properly enforced. She revealed that 90 percent of the roofs in Hanoi seem to violate that law. It needs to be amended, she said, as it does not contain structural quality guidelines nor does it require a comprehensive master plan for the old quarter it aims to protect. Mme.To Thi also said that both social and architectural surveys should be taken because the community has to be consulted about housing preferences and other concerns. We all agreed that heritage conservation should be community based with proposals coming from below instead of being imposed from the top.

On the last day, Prof. Arnold Koerte (Technical University Darmastadt) presented a list of key words and issues discussed during the conference: Do we want heritage sites to be living museums? Conserving built heritage should not be confused with recreating the past but it must be noted that cultural sites, settings and architectural structures are, in fact, archives of urban history. Is colonial heritage still a disputed issue? (We had argued about whether our colonial past evokes good or bad memories.) With regard to Hanoi street life - should it be allowed to flow freely or should there be regulatory control and interference? There should be grassroots participation, that is, enjoyment of streets by the community. Resettlement will come voluntarily when people improve their standard of living through economic activity. Tourism is an incentive to urban conservation efforts.

Gemma Cruz-Araneta
(gcruz@i-manila.com.ph)


This commentary was originally posted at:

www.mb.com.ph/news.php?art=23853§=3&fname=OE02120923853f.txt
Re-post with permission 12/2002


- Ngườihiệuđính: admin vào ngày Dec.10.2002, 23:17 pm

-----------------------------
We are the advocates of the new Vietnamese2020 language reform!