A corner of the Hanoi Old Quarter (Photo: Internet)
The Hanoi Old Quarter has the highest population density in the city. Stable population density is about 800-1,200 persons/hectare, the average area of land per person is about 4 – 6 square meters, even in some wards there is only two square meters/person. In addition, this doesn’t include the residence of labourers, traders, vendors from other regions and tourists.
Under the impacts of the market economy, the value of land in the Old Quarter increases dramatically, so the opportunity to profit from the land makes many families not want to leave their land. At the same time, many families from other places want to have a house in this quarter to have favourable conditions to do business. Besides, a large number of workers from other places also pour in to make a living, that makes the old quarter change.
Moreover, many traditional trades, manners and customs have also changed. Firstly, traditional handicrafts have been disappearing, instead are small shops, which sell fine art products along with groceries and imported products. However, some streets still retain typical traditional industries such as Hang Bac, Hang Ma, Hang Thiec, Lo Ren and Lan Ong streets.
Manners and customs under the impact of market mechanisms have changed. Traditional lifestyles have also fallen into oblivion, replaced by new lifestyles along with the market economy.
In the field of architecture, pace of building in Hanoi Old Quarter takes place very fast and aggressively. Architectural features of the quarter have a lot of changes, traditional architectures are gradually lost, replaced by new architectural works with style and scale not suitable with the quarter due to people’s lack of awareness and loose management.
Advantage of geographical position has inadvertently become a factor to obstruct preservation of valuable works or move people to a new region. So, the project on moving people in the old quarter to a new region hasn’t been implemented successfully. Many people don’t want to move because they don’t want to move their family record book registered in the old quarter to another region, in order to enjoy the advantages of schools, hospitals and high-quality services in Hoan Kiem district.
Many experts believe that traditional culture preservation and promotion are not only responsibility of administrations at all levels, but also responsibility of the community, people in the old quarter.
To achieve success in the preservation and promotion of traditional culture of the old quarter today must be done thanks to the participation and significant contribution of people in the old quarter.
For example, the heritage house at No. 87 Ma May, Kim Ngan communal house and the house at No. 50 Dao Duy Tu street, many household have voluntarily to move to other region. In addition, during the process of upgrading communal houses, temples and pagodas, people in the old quarter have voluntarily contributed funding along with the funding of the Hoan Kiem district for upgrading and preservation.
The people in the old quarter have also to preserve festivals, with the participation of large numbers of people.
Traditional cultural promotion and conservation in the Hanoi Old Quarter are not only responsibility of administration at all levels but also responsibility of people throughout the country in general and people in the Hanoi Old Quarter in particular. The support of the people is tremendous strength during the traditional cultural conservation and promotion to meet requirements of sustainable development of the Hanoi Old Quarter./.