The cost of negligence

The heritage has been damaged to an unrecoverable extent when the tomb of a concubine of King Tu Duc under the Nguyen Dynasty was bulldozed last week in a project to develop a parking lot in the former imperial city of Hue. It is not an act of sabotage, but rather an unintentional activity to upgrade related facilities for visitors to the mausoleum of King Tu Duc. However, it is the negligence on the part of both the developer and local authorities that result in the irreparable consequence.

The treasure, so to say, should have been unknowingly destroyed and buried for good but for the protests of locals who later provided information to newspapers.

As covered in local media, Chuoi Gia Tri Joint Stock Company in 2015 was awarded a project by Hue City’s government to develop a parking lot covering 17,200 square meters, which also encompasses a graveyard of over 7,200 square meters. Relatives of the deceased have been told to remove all the remains from the graveyard, but there were still 81 tombs unclaimed for as of last month, including the concubine’s tomb, which is a solid domed structure with high walls covering some 45 square meters.

Hue City authorities to date have not handed over the land to Chuoi Gia Tri, pending negotiations with a few families over the compensation. However, on June 19, the company deployed vehicles and machines to level the ground, bulldozing all the remaining tombs including the sprawling structure being the tomb of the aforesaid concubine with the royal title of My Phi the following day, according to the news site Giao Duc Viet Nam.

The day after, the news spread widely as protesting locals informed newspapers of the abnormal activity. Local authorities upon learning of the incident ordered a halt for further examination. After days of searching, a tombstone engraved with the name of the concubine was found last Saturday, Nguoi Lao Dong reports.

Then the blame game begins.

Hue City’s Land Management Center points the accusing finger at Chuoi Gia Tri, saying the company had started construction though the land had not been handed over to them, leading to the destruction of the mausoleum, according to Nguoi Lao Dong.

However, Nguyen Anh Tuan, deputy director of the center, says that in the process of site inspection, the concubine’s mausoleum was not recorded.

Tuan says in Thanh Nien that he has made several field trips to the site, and has met with numerous grassroots officials and local residents, but no one has ever told him about such a mausoleum in the area.

Phan Thanh Hai, director of the Hue Monuments Conservation Center, says in Tuoi Tre that Chuoi Gia Tri Company was wrong when proceeding with construction work without informing his center as an agency concerned. However, Hai also asserts that he has never heard of the concubine’s mausoleum.

“As far as I am concerned, many previous studies have only mentioned the mausoleum of Hoc Phi as another concubine (of the Nguyen Dynasty). There are no other mausoleums of any other concubines in the area,” he is quoted in Tuoi Tre.

Chuoi Gia Tri as the developer, meanwhile, explained they did not know of the concubine’s mausoleum in the graveyard, leading to the regrettable incident.

In this special case, being unknowledgeable is unacceptable, however, as it only reveals the negligence of agencies concerned.

According to Giao duc Viet Nam, some locals have painstakingly resisted construction on the graveyard as it is home to the mausoleums of two concubines namely Hoc Phi and My Phi. These two mausoleums are located closely and are in close proximity to King Tu Duc’s mausoleum.

When machines and vehicles were gathered on June 19, some locals told construction workers that the mausoleum had to be kept intact, but they did not heed. The day after, the structure was gone.

According to the news site Vietnamnet, many agencies must be held accountable for the huge mistake, from the investor to the provincial Department of Culture and Sports, grassroots administrative units, and some other management bodies, for their failure to attend to heritage sites in the locality.

“Before the project was started, there had been information about the ancient tomb in the graveyard… It is unacceptable that related agencies only stepped in after news about it surfaced,” the online paper quotes a local as saying.

Do Bang, chairman of Thua Thien-Hue Province’s Historical Science Society, says in Nguoi Lao Dong that “the grave covers up to 50 square meters with the tombstone and surrounding walls, then it is unacceptable when they said they did not know.”

According to Thanh Nien, the list of ancestral tablets carrying the names of King Tu Duc’s concubines placed in the king’s mausoleum includes that of My Phi. Her ancestral tablet is placed to the left in the first position, says the paper.

Despite the presence of the concubine’s ancestral tablet in the king’s mausoleum, and despite the tombstone engraved with her name placed in her mausoleum, it is weird that local authorities have failed to verify such a heritage site in the graveyard right in the heart of the former imperial city after many long years.

At a meeting this Monday, Le Quoc Tuan, director of Chuoi Gia Tri Company, made a formal apology to the public, and promised to make all efforts to rebuild the concubine’s mausoleum that has been razed to the ground, Giao duc Viet Nam reports. “We will start restoring and rebuilding the mausoleum with the assistance from the Hue Monuments Conservation Center,” he is quoted as saying.

The mausoleum can be rebuilt, but reconstruction cannot help recover the heritage. It is lost for good, which is the huge cost of negligence.

HCMC to apply int’l standards in vocational education

The BTEC vocational education program of the UK and examination standards of Pearson Education Group will be applied at 15 vocational schools in HCMC this year.

The HCMC Department of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs, Pearson and EMG Education on Wednesday signed a cooperation agreement to apply international standards to vocational training programs in HCMC under the management of the department.

Nguyen Van Lam, deputy director of the Department of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs, said other vocational schools will join the program in the coming years.

The BTEC program is made available for many levels with the same assessment system with 100% of practice tests. BTEC is in use at many universities and colleges in the UK, attracting more than 500,000 students a year.

The program has been taught at college in Vietnam since 2005 and recognized by the Ministries of Education-Training and Labor-Invalids-Social Affairs.

Pearson on Wednesday also authorized EMG Education to organize examinations for English certificates of Pearson in Vietnam.

Vietnamese students will be granted Pearson’s certificates if they complete all Pearson tests in which PTE Academic test results accepted by thousands of universities worldwide can be used to apply for temporary resident, resident and student visas in Australia and New Zealand.

VNese student winning int'l scholarship provides summer course

Vo Tuong An, who won scholarships from more than 10 prestigious international universities and is co-founder of ICE organization, organized the program “ Developing young leaders” in Binh Son High School in the central province of Quang Ngai.
 
In addition to the program, An has colaborated with the International Catalysts for Empowerment (ICE), a non-profit organization founded in 2014 under the Yale Young Global Scholars program and Young Entrepreneurs Adventure Vietnam (YEA Vietnam) launched the program “60DAYS”, to provide free summer course for tenth and eleventh graders in Ly Son Island in Quang Ngai.

For the program “Developing young leaders” with 50 participants, An said the program aims to cultivate the conception of starting a business; through the course, students will assess their own skills and factors influencing on market and then they understand the path to their future career.

An and 13 other volunteers selected proper books compiled by the US Badson University. The program last from June 29 to July 2.

Meantime, the program “60DAYS” also in Ly Son Island in 60 days. Volunteers will teach subjects of Math, Physics, Chemistry, Literature, English and Biology for 130 high school pupils in Ly Son district to improve their knowledge and environment- and society-related skills, so that they would be prepared for their future’s examinations.

Solutions unclear, unspecific for seven breakthrough programs

HCMC has traveled one third of the way to implement the 10th city Party Committee’s resolution in the term of 2015-2020. Still obtained results have been initial, unconnected and yet to create clear changes with unspecific solutions.

Dr. Huynh Thanh Dien, member of the city’s Support Industry Development Project Consulting Team, estimated that the seven breakthrough programs have been implemented in the phase of studying and building projects, capital mobilization solutions and implementation mechanisms. Specific actions to conduct the programs have been unclear with some being unspecific and abstract.
Ward, commune and district authorities have been vague about actions to materialize the programs.

Missions to carry out the programs has mainly been assigned to government agencies with little attendance by local business community, Mr. Dien commented. Meanwhile the government just plays the role of state management not running the programs, so implementation will be difficult without businesses’ joining hands.

Reports from authorized agencies show that results got since the programs were implemented in 2015 are unconnected, not radical and unsustainable.

Quoting traffic field, deputy chairman of the city People’s Committee Le Van Khoa said that public passenger transport output has grown after many years of reduction. Still he admitted that bus transportation still shows many limitations and faces challenges.

Stating at the 10th conference of the 10th HCMC Party Committee, the committee’s standing deputy secretary Tat Thanh Cang, said that traffic jam and accidents have been complicated. Investment in connecting transport methods together has not been high, airport and seaport overloading especially at Tan Son Nhat International Airport has raised difficulties for socio-economic development, the construction progress of urban railway routes has not met requirements and urban planning and canal house removal projects have been slow.

Although the city has built plans and solutions to specify the program to ease environmental pollution, the Department of Natural Resources and Environment said that the city’s environmental quality has insignificantly been improved. Groundwater, surface water, wastewater, air and noise pollution has not decreased. Urban waste management has showed many problems. Part of organizations and individuals’ awareness of environmental protection has not been good.

Explaining the slow change in the city's seven breakthrough programs, a representative of the city People’s Committee said that the 10th Party Committee resolution has been implemented in five years from 2015-2020. In fact, the municipal authorities had soon had initial ideas comprising targets, directions, missions and solutions for each program.

Nonetheless, the seven programs were just approved by the city at the end of 2016. The promulgation of the programs together with implementing plans by the city People’s Committee had been slow. However it was a very serious and careful preparation process with opinion collection from many experts, scientists and agencies, the representative said.

The biggest difficulty for the city to conduct the programs now is capital with the total need of US$40 billion. Meantime, the city’s budget contribution rate to the central budget has been increased for national development programs.

HCMC has faced challenges in raising funds from other sources rather than the state budget because it has still mobilized capital under a common mechanism applied nationwide instead of a particular mechanism suiting the city’s characteristics of the country’s economic hub.

Dr. Nguyen Huu Nguyen, from National Strategy and Policy Research Center under HCMC University of Social Sciences and Humanities, proposed the city to make clear three resources to implement the seven breakthrough programs comprising finance, human resources (skilled workers) and brain power (good experts and cadres).

While performing their missions, a number of city cadres and officials are still selfish, self-seeking, greedy for frame, corruptive, factional, partial and bureaucratic. This is an obstacle in carrying out the seven breakthrough programs, he added.

The City's seven breakthrough programs comprise urban planning and development; human resource quality , administrative reform, growth quality and economics’ competitiveness improvement; and traffic jam and accident, flooding, environmental pollution reduction.

Infirmaries in HCMC alert to dengue shock

Three people died of dengue in infirmaries in Ho Chi Minh City since the beginning of the year. Moreover, many inpatients suffered dengue shocks which threaten their lives.

The city's Department of Preventive Medicine said that last week, the city reported 339 dengue cases, up by 40 percent compared to the average number in four weeks of 246 ca.
Last week one death was reported in Binh Tan District bringing total figure of dengue deaths to three.

In Children Hospital No.1, over 70 children are hospitalized due to dengue every week. Head of the hospital’s Planning Ward Dr. Ngo Ngoc Quang Minh said that of 116 children are being treated in the hospital, ten of them suffered serious shock.

Several kids are on a ventilator and two died of shock. They were transferred from other provinces when they are in critical condition.

Meantime, the Children Hospital No.2 admits 45-50 kids averagely per week. Head of the Infection ward Dr. Do Chau Viet said that currently, five serious dengue cases are being treated in the infirmary. Four of them have been extremely sick, but thankfully they are off the danger list now while one is treated in intensive care unit.

Generally, the rate of severe cases ranges from 10 – 15 percent.

The Tropical Disease Hospital in Ho Chi Minh City where adults with dengue are being treated also has seen an increase in hospitalization of inpatients.

Head of Infection D Dr. Nguyen Thanh Phong said the admission of dengue patients in June hike by 30 – 40 percent compared to May.

The figure doubles the same period last year.

Dengue fever is an infection with flu-like symptoms transmitted by mosquitoes. Accordingly, adults are neglectful and buy drug by themselves without doctors’ prescription.

Worse, they are taken to hospital when in critical condition; accordingly, they usually suffered shock even death.

Because surge in dengue kids with shock transferred from other provinces, the Children Hospital No.1 set up five mobile teams to treat these cases and provide assistance to medical clinics in districts.
At present, the hospital prepares enough medication, fluid for infusion, ventilators, blood for the outbreaks of the disease. Additionally, training is provided to medical workers to take care of serious cases.

Director of the Department of Preventive Medicine Dr. Nguyen Tri Dung said that next time, the preventive health sector will establish teams to detect vulnerable places for the disease to handle and petition local administrations to issue harsh penalties to residents who intentionally disobey guidance in dengue prevention.

In related news, the Department of Health in the Mekong delta province of Ca Mau July 1 announced 997 dengue cases, a year-on-year increase of 40 percent. Amongst districts with high cases are Tran Van Thoi District with 358 cases, Cai Nuoc District with 116 cases, Dam Doi District with 113 cases, and Ca Mau Town with 113 cases. Moreover, the province reported seven cases of malaria.
Kien Giang province has so far had 400 dengue cases and ten percent of them are adults without death.

Vietnam Culture Day shines in Austria

The Vietnam Culture Day was held in Vienna City Hall, Austria on July 3 with the engagement of 400 visitors.

The event was jointly organised by the Vietnamese Embassy in Austria, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, the Ministry of Information and Communication, and Vienna authorities.

Vietnamese Ambassador to Austria Vu Viet Anh highlighted the growing relations between the two countries over the past 45 years, especially in trade and economy.

Austria has become the fifth largest trade partner of Vietnam in the European Union (EU) with two-way trade hitting 3 billion USD last year.

Chairperson of the Austrian National Council’s Foreign Affairs Committee Josef Cap said on December 1, 1972, Austria was the third Western country to establish diplomatic ties with Vietnam.

The bilateral relations have been developing positively in recent years across politics, economy and culture.

An exhibition titled “Vietnam – Global Destination 2017” was opened at the event, showcasing nearly 300 photos that feature world heritage sites, traditional craft villages, festivals, and cuisine in Vietnam as well as the beauty of Vietnamese seas and islands.

Documents on Vietnam’s Hoang Sa (Paracel) and Truong Sa (Spratly) archipelagos drew great attention from visitors.

Vietnamese artists also attracted participants with special music and dance performances.

The American ‘Doctor Strange’ of Vietnam

An American physiotherapist has given up her home and career in the US to realize her dream of helping patients in Vietnam.

At 2:00 pm on June 27, a young woman was admitted to the Da Nang Hospital of Traditional Medicine in Da Nang City.

The 22-year-old patient had been unable to move her legs since a traffic accident that nearly killed her three months earlier.

Doctors at the hospital conducted an examination of her condition, despite the patient’s emotional distress and lack of cooperation throughout the process.

Then a tall foreign woman dressed in a white coat sat down beside the weeping patient, held her hand, looked straight into her eyes and asked in Vietnamese: “Does it hurt?”

After a long conversation through an interpreter, the young woman eventually calmed down and was handed a jar of lotion to be applied to her legs where it hurt.

“It’s psychotherapy,” said Ha Thi Nhung, a technician at the hospital. “She always gets to know her patients before learning about their conditions. She gives them trust and hope through her eyes and gestures.”

For the past seven years, Nhung and her colleagues at the Da Nang Hospital of Traditional Medicine have become used to the expert bedside manner of 64-year-old U.S. physiotherapist Virginia Mary Lockett, who has been a volunteer to provide professional support for patients in Vietnam for nearly a decade.

First arriving in Vietnam in 1995, her first reason for coming was to adopt a child with her husband.

It was by chance that the couple’s interpreter at the time learned of Lockett’s profession and invited her to his home in order to recommend some therapeutic exercise for his paralyzed father.

According to Lockett, the interpreter’s father had had his femur broken in a traffic accident, but had suffered complications that led to paralysis in his arms and legs, something which was put down to the lack of appropriate training for local doctors at the time.

She recalled telling the interpreter that his father would not have been in a situation like that had he been treated in the U.S.

Both the interpreter and his father burst into tears on hearing her words, the tears that haunted Lockett well after she returned to the U.S.

It was those very tears that prompted her to go back to Vietnam ten years later as a volunteer of Health Volunteers Overseas (HVO), a Washington DC-based non-profit dedicated to improving the availability and quality of healthcare in resource-scarce countries.

As an expert in physiotherapy, Lockett spent three weeks working with doctors at a functional rehabilitation center in Da Nang, where she helped train the technicians.

However, the brief volunteer program was far from enough to deliver what the devoted Lockett needed to make real changes.

Lockett went back to the U.S. after those three weeks with the belief that her expertise was needed more in Vietnam than in America, and that her being in Vietnam would mean so much more to those patients.

After traveling back and forth between the two countries, the exhaustion and expense eventually gave way to the idea of settling down permanently in Vietnam, a decision that received the full support of her husband.

Her firstborn and first adopted child were already old enough to take care of themselves, while she thought it would do no harm for her other Vietnamese adoptee to live in his home country.

It took no time at all for the couple to go follow-through on their decision, and in the summer of 2006, Lockett and her husband sold their house and traveled across the ocean to Vietnam on a travel visa.

Prior to selling their home, Lockett had written a letter to the ambassador of Vietnam in Washington D.C., asking whether she could work long-term as a medical expert in Vietnam.

When she received the ambassador’s response that advised her to go and work for a non-governmental organization, she decided to found her own.

Steady Footsteps was founded with the goal of providing assistance to the disabled in Vietnam, with the three founding members being the couple and their Vietnamese interpreter Nguyen Huu Huy.

“They have great hearts, a frugal lifestyle and an unconditional willingness to do their best for the benefit of the patients,” Huy said. “They find joy in seeing their patients being treated free of charge.”

According to Nguyen Van Anh, the director of the Da Nang Hospital of Traditional Medicine, Lockett has brought new life to the hospital’s physiotherapy unit since she started working there as a volunteer.

The number of patients seeking physiotherapeutic treatment has increased to the point that expansions have had to be made, Anh said.

“For many years Virginia has worked the hours of any other employee without taking any days off despite her being a volunteer,” he added. “I even heard that she had once been warned of having her pension terminated for staying outside of the U.S. for too long. We have also offered to provide financial support by paying for her interpreter, but she rejected the idea right away.”

For Lockett, what she has done in Vietnam over the past ten years has been what she had wanted to do since graduating from medical school.

Hai Phong: Local procession ritual recognised as national cultural heritage

A local festival linked with ceremonial procession in Hoang Chau island commune, Cat Hai district, the northern port city of Hai Phong, has been recognised as a national intangible cultural heritage.

On July 3, in Hoang Chau island commune, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism granted a certificate to include Xa Ma Festival - Hoang Chau Procession in the list of Vietnam’s intangible cultural heritages. This festival is imbued with the unique, local cultural identities of the island commune.

Speaking at the ceremony, Cat Hai district Party Secretary Bui Trung Nghia emphasised that the district is a rich cultural area with 88 relics, including eight monuments of municipal level and four of national levels. The Xa Ma Festival – Hoag Chau Procession has a long history associated with national historical relics and Hoang Chau Communal House was built about 300 years ago.

Xa Ma Festival - Hoang Chau Procession is held annually from the ninth to twelfth day of the sixth lunar month, with the main festival occurring on the tenth day, to commemorate the construction of the communal house and to pay tribute to Princess Lieu Hanh and two local tutelary gods who fought off invaders to protect the islanders, as well as praying for good seas and a huge catch.

Hoang Chau Communal House worships Princess Lieu Hanh, Marshal Tuyen Nghi and Vice Marshal Bui Dai Vuong, as well as the King of the East Sea and the Female King of the South Sea.

Princess Lieu Hanh is one of the Four Immortals of Thanism, and also a leading figure in the Mother Goddesses belief, a symbol of prosperity. Because of her many merits in protecting a peaceful life and prosperity, as well as struggling against natural disasters and pirates, holy Princess Lieu Hanh has been worshiped at the communal house.

The two goddesses Tuyen Nghi and Bui Dai Vuong were high-ranking generals under the Later Le Dynasty, making great contributions to the fight against pirates, protecting local people in the coastal regions.

The Xa Ma Festival – Hoang Chau Procession is a form of community-based cultural activities of spirituality and religious beliefs, contributing to the cohesion of the community and society. Throughout the festival, Hoang Chau people educate the next generations on their ancestors’ precious traditions on patriotism and hard work.

The festival is also a place to store precious historical data, helping historians to study more on the records of various dynasties, regarding distinguished historical figures worshiped by local people.

This is the second national intangible cultural heritage of Hai Phong to be recognised in 2017 after Minh The Festival (Hoa Lieu village, Thuan Thien commune, Kien Thuy district).

Target programme on developing culture approved

A target programme on developing culture for the 2016-2020 period has recently been approved by the Prime Minister.

The programme includes three projects on preserving and promoting the values of cultural heritages, increasing investments on building and developing cultural institutions, and boosting artistic performances.

The programme aims to uphold the treasured values of the country’s traditional cultural heritages in a bid to build an advanced Vietnamese culture imbued with national identity.

It has set a target of restoring and upgrading a total of 20 world cultural heritages and special national heritages, as well as 400 national relic sites, across the country by 2020.

Priority will also be placed on collecting and preserving intangible cultural heritages and traditional festivals of 16 ethnic minority groups, with populations of less than 10,000 each.

Furthermore, the facilities of 15 provincial cultural centres, 30 district-based cultural centres and 20 areas for children’s entertainment will be upgraded, while cultural publications will be provided for border posts and communes in border areas.

Theatres, cinemas, and exhibitions houses will be built or repaired and local traditional art troupes will be given support under the programme.

BR-VT province proposes to build solar-power plant

The southern province of Ba Ria- Vung Tau (BR-VT) authority yesterday sent document to the Department of Energy under the Ministry of Industry and Trade proposing to add the solar-power plant into the country’s electricity development plan.

People’s Committee in BR-VT also submitted to the Prime Minister for approval of the solar-power plant in Chau Duc Industrial Park with capacity of 100 MW into the country’s plan.

The solar-power plant invested by Halla E&C Company and Korean Hyosung Company is worth over VND1,858 billion for the first phase, covering 60ha in Chau Duc Industrial Park.

The plant will use solar panels and battery, connecting to the country’s electricity grid.

People’s Committee is unanimous to build the solar power project in the industrial park. The first phase is scheduled to complete the plant in December, 2018.

HCMC slowly tackles flooding, traffic jam, environmental pollution

Ho Chi Minh City has slowly tackled flooding, traffic jam and environmental pollution in the first half this year, said chairwoman of the city People’s Council Nguyen Thi Quyet Tam this morning.

Speaking at the 5th session of the 9th city People’s Council opened from July 4 to July 6, Ms. Tam said that the above problems together with others relating urban management, land, corruption, crimes and social evils have been much reflected by city residents. Still they have been solved slowly.

The slow settlement of the issues has hindered the city’s development and affected the life of residents, requiring the city to have radical solutions in the upcoming time especially in the second half this year, said chairwoman Tam.

She proposed the session to focus on discussing how to settle the above issues and solutions for sustainable growth, urging urban management operations to focus on restoring street order. Government agencies should make efforts to create breakthroughs in administrative reform and build e-government efficiently.

She prompted the city People’s Committee and relevant agencies to make clear problems that residents, voters, delegates and members of the Vietnam Fatherland Front in HCMC have mentioned.

At the session, deputy chairman of the city People’s Committee Le Thanh Liem reported that gross regional domestic product (GRDP) growth reached 7.76 percent, higher than 7.47 percent during the same period last year.

Business environment and the competitiveness of the city’s economics have been improved but yet to meet requirements, market development has met with many difficulties and growth has mainly based on the contribution of capital.

In the second half this year, the committee will continue performing solutions and missions to obtain socioeconomic development targets this year. For instance, GRDP growth rate will reach 8.4-8.7 percent, budget revenue will meet 100 percent of estimates and 50,000 new businesses will be established.

Other solutions will be carried out to improve Public Administration Performance Index (PAPI), Provincial Competitiveness Index (PCI) and Provincial Public Administration Reform Index (PAR Index).

VNA/VNS/VOV/SGT/SGGP/TT/TN/Dantri/VNE