Never before has Vietnamese culture faced such a special competition as today. In the digital age, with just one smartphone, millions of Vietnamese people, especially young people, can access countless cultural products from all over the world.
In this competition, Vietnamese culture has been and is somewhat inferior with a very thought-provoking reality.
That is that many young Vietnamese people can list the names of characters in Hollywood movies, memorize K-pop songs, are passionate about Japanese anime or spend hours on foreign electronic games. But if asked about some historical figures, legends or cultural values of their own nation, many young people are confused.
This situation is not because young people are turning their backs on Vietnamese culture, but because in the fierce competition in the digital space, our culture is not showing enough attractiveness. That also means that Vietnamese culture will not be able to maintain its position if it only relies on calls to preserve its identity.
Therefore, the assessment of General Secretary and President To Lam at the second session of the Central Steering Committee for Cultural Development of Vietnam: "If in the past we had to protect culture from the risk of assimilation by coercive force, today the challenge comes from the competition for the attractiveness of cultural values in the digital environment" - has suggested a new approach to preserving national identity in the digital age.
In the internet world, no one can force users to watch a movie, listen to a song or read a story just because it is a domestic product. Nor can anyone prevent them from accessing cultural products from all over the world.
In other words, today's cultural sovereignty is not built by closed barriers, but by the capacity for Vietnamese culture to be competitive right on global digital platforms.
That also explains why in his speech, General Secretary and President To Lam emphasized the need to transform heritage into data, data into knowledge, intellectual property and creative products.
For a long time, we have been proud to have a massive heritage treasure with tens of thousands of relics, tens of thousands of intangible cultural heritages. But if those values are only in museums, in archives or are "put on the internet" in a simple way of scanning documents, taking photos and then saving them into databases, the vitality of heritage is still very limited.
This has created gaps, as General Secretary and President To Lam pointed out, that "we have a rich cultural treasure, but have not created many literary, film, musical, artistic, design, game, and digital content works that can become Vietnamese cultural symbols in the region and in the world".
A heritage only truly enters digital life when it becomes an attractive movie, attractive video game, animation, e-book, virtual reality exhibition or short content that makes young people actively look for and share.
