Binh Duong sacred communal houses - Historical and cultural values

Binh Duong province Historical Science Association organized a workshop on "Binh Duong sacred communal houses - Historical and cultural values". At the workshop, scholars, researchers, delegates with an interest in cultural heritage shared their research findings, valuable experiences in study methods of sacred communal houses with the objective to improve the effectiveness and quality of the scientific project "Binh Duong communal houses - Historical and cultural values", thereby improving the quality of cultural heritage research in Binh Duong.

Remarkable studies

Binh Duong province has 13/125 communal houses classified as historical monuments, of which two houses were recognized national monuments (Phu Long and Tan An); 11 monuments were ranked at provincial level. Each temple has unique features and has become a gathering place of people. Therefore, in order to preserve and promote historical and cultural values ​​of Binh Duong temples, provincial Historical Science Association jointly organized a seminar on grassroots-level scientific subject "Binh Duong sacred communal houses - Historical and cultural values".

Researchers and scholars are at the workshop "Binh Duong sacred communal houses - Historical and cultural values".

At the workshop, new and unique features of Binh Duong communal houses were presented by researchers. In particular, researcher Ho Van Tuong gave a speech "Tan Phuoc Khanh communal house – A symbol of two ages"; Ms. Dang Hoang Lan helped participants understand more about "Preservation of Tan An temple (Ben The) in tourism development of Binh Duong Province"; researcher Nguyen Huu Loc with the study "Chinese cultural elements in Vietnamese temples in Binh Duong province"... Many researchers also explored unique architectures of communal houses in Binh Duong, for example Tran Duc Thuan with "Binh Duong architecture - some outlines"… To survive over time, temples must be restored, renovated, and well managed. That was also topic of the speech "Binh Duong sacred communal houses and restoration issues” of Ms. Van Thi Thuy Trang’s, Head of Management Board of provincial monuments and attractions.

In these speeches, scholars from other provinces and cities in the South also posed additional problems to clarify characteristics of provincial temples, including restoration without losing historical values of these temples; unique arrangements of altar; space for common activities in each temple... The issues posed by scholars would be the foundation, very useful scientific suggestions for the team of scientific project "Binh Duong sacred communal houses - Historical and cultural values" to complete the project on time and achieved good quality.

To uphold the values of communal houses

The communal houses own cultural and historical values, illustrate the land and people of Binh Duong. Some temples also bear the stamp of past wars; used to be a shelter for our soldiers and people. Therefore, communal houses are places not only for older people come to on occasions of worshiping but also for young people to understand cultural and historical values ​​. However, in facts, the visitor number of temples in the province is not high, especially the younger generation. Therefore, researchers raised the question of how to promote the values of temples.

Ms. Van Thi Thuy Trang shared, to implement the project "Friendly schools, active students", schools organized student’s visits and take care of communal houses. The Culture and Information offices in collaboration with Education and Training offices organized student’s visits to historical monuments to learn about national and provincial history, traditions...

According to researcher Dang Hoang Lan, sacred communal houses can be integrated into tours to attract visitors. For example, Tan An temple has increasing visitor number, and was filmed several times. In addition, there were many tourists coming to Binh Duong to visit this ancient temple; thereby, proving values of this temple in tourism development. However, when researching the tourism development, it is necessary to recognize the advantages and inadequacies in the preservation and promotion of cultural values ​​in order to have feasible solutions for all levels of government, temple management boards, local community, and travel companies.

Huynh Ngoc Dang, Chairman of provincial Historical Science Association, appreciated valuable contributions of researchers and scholars. He also hoped this workshop would be the starting point for many new researches on communal houses in Binh Duong and the South. Besides, he proposed more studies to find solutions to promote cultural historical values of temples, to attract young visitors to understand more about local history and culture.

Reported by Thien Ly – Translated by Ngoc Huynh