Building the lifestyle of Hanoians with the following criteria: Law enforcement, helpful and compassionate life for everyone, good saying, good work, beautiful style, etc is the task concretized by the Hanoi City Party Committee in the program No. 04-Ctr/TU on “Cultural-social development, capital human resource quality improvement, and elegant and civilized Hanoian building”. The results have contributed to raising Hanoians’ awareness and sense of responsibility and aroused their pride, gradually strengthening, improving and developing cultural values.\
Community Centre of Binh Vong Hamlet, Van Binh Commune (Thuong Tin District) attracts crowds to read and join cultural activities. Photo by Le Tuan
The Politburo’s Resolution No. 11-NQ/TU determines “to further build the culture of the Capital to match the tradition of thousand years of culture; creating a new shift in building the elegant and civilized culture of Hanoians…”, as one of the tasks and solutions for the Capital’s development in the period 2011-2020. After five years of implementation, the movement to build a cultural life and civilized and elegant Hanoians has been making positive and comprehensive changes. The urban cultural and civilized lifestyle, especially in weddings, funerals and festivals have been positively improved; the sense of law observance has been enhanced; the development of a code of conduct in the community has been completed. By the end of 2016, Hanoi had 86% of families, 55.2% of villages and 70% of residential groups reaching and maintaining the title of cultural families, villages and residential groups. Many cultural models such as “Formal and economical wedding”, “Civilized and progressive funeral”, “Culture Ward”, “Standard urban civilized ward”, “Residential Group without waste”, etc. have been formed and developed in localities.
Improving the quality of cultural life
The system of cultural institutions in Hanoi has been paid attention, better meeting community’s needs of cultural development and ethnic cultural preservation. In recent years, hundreds of grassroots community centres have been built in Hanoi in accordance with standards, becoming meeting points for cultural activities of the classes of people.
In particular, after a long “pregnancy”, the code of conduct for officials, public servants, employees and labourers in the agencies in Hanoi and the code of conduct in public area in the city, aimed at guiding behaviours for the people of all classes were issued by Hanoi city. With both scientific and practical guidelines, these two Codes of Conduct have quickly come to life.
Well following the code of conduct in public areas
According to the Vice Director of Hanoi Department of Culture and Information Nguyen Khac Loi, in implementing the Politburo’s Resolution No. 11-NQ/TU, the state management of culture has been strengthened and performed effectively. The movement to build a cultural life and civilized and elegant Hanoians has been developed in both breadth and depth, contributing to a healthy cultural environment to educate and nurture good qualities of Hanoians. “With the synchronous and strong implementation of the localities, the cultural and civilized environment from the office to the public, from the family to society in the area of Hanoi city will gradually shape”, Mr. Nguyen Khac Loi believes.
Requiring more effort
In spite of remarkable results, it is not difficult to realize somewhere littering, bad words, and bad behaviours in public, advertisement board hung or affixed in the wrong places, unserious compliance with the laws when participating in traffic. Though the “All people join hand to build a cultural life” movement has been implemented for a long time, some localities still have not paid due attention. In new urban areas and industrial parks, investors and enterprises have not really cared about building a cultural and spiritual life for the people and labourers. Despite a large number, community centres are unevenly distributed. In urban districts, the percentage of residential groups with community centres is 27.5%, while the rate in the suburban districts is 82.5%, leading to both redundancy and lack of community centres.
These shortcomings necessitate further efforts by both the political system and the people of the capital. The Program No. 04-CTr/TU of the 16th Hanoi City Party Committee on “Cultural-social development, capital human resource quality improvement, and elegant and civilized Hanoian building in the period 2016-2020” sets the goals to create a clear transformation in the elegant and civilized lifestyle of Hanoians; to restore, inherit and promote Thang Long – Hanoi traditional families’ ethical, cultural and human values in conformity with the requirements of the modern industrial and urban life; To build and promote the lifestyle of “One for everyone, everyone for one”; and To promote the building and development of a grassroot cultural life.
Hanoi Department of Culture and Information is now coordinating with disciplines to develop the project on “Improving the quality of building grassroots cultural models” and the project on “Perfecting culture and sports institutions from the city to grassroots levels”. Accordingly, Hanoi will mobilize resources to improve the operating quality of the grassroots community centres, striving for 100% of hamlets, villages and residential groups with community centres by 2020. The models of “cultural families”, “cultural villages” and “cultural residential groups” will be further improved in terms of quality and efficiency.
In order to develop Hanoi into the country’s large and typical center of culture, the city will focus on developing the cultural industry in parallel with building and perfecting the cultural market; improving the quality and effectiveness of cultural activities; developing and strengthening the effective management, investment and operation of cultural institutions while widely applying the code of conduct for officials, public servants, and laborers in the agencies of Hanoi City and the code of conduct in public, creating a strong change in the capital people’s perception, sense of execution and responsibility of law enforcement.
Ha Hien