From oral to digital
Dr. Nguyen Thi Tuyet Nhung from the Viet Bac College of Culture and Arts said anecdotes and legends tied to the country’s ethnic communities have long fueled local tourism and form an inexhaustible creative resource.
Moving that vast, decentralised archive into the digital space could democratise access nationwide, spark fresh cultural production, and make preservation radically more effective.
Yet, the conversion is fraught. Customs, rituals and folk melodies are vanishing. As folk materials have lived in oral tradition and scattered communities, collecting and verifying it into standardised, trustworthy data is a steep climb.
Recording efforts and artisan interviews have drawn attention but remain unsystematic. A handful of localities have built credible folk culture databases; many others are barely paying attention.
Patchy data standards are stoking fears that digitisation will strip folk forms of their “authenticity".
Tran Huu Son, former Vice President of the Vietnam Folk Arts Association, warned that folk culture is inseparable from its physical and spiritual setting. Tearing the data out of that sacred space may make original beauty evaporate, undermining any contribution to cultural creativity.
Chronic underfunding, limited tech infrastructure, and a severe shortage of professionals fluent in both culture and technology are further blocking progress.
More investment in tech infrastructure, workforce
To pick up speed, Vietnam must pour cash into digital infrastructure and a national cultural heritage database, while giving leading researchers the incentives to build a standardised repository.
An independent and objective scientific review board is needed to vet the flood of raw materials and lock in accuracy. Cross-disciplinary training that fuses tech and cultural expertise must be scaled up.
Nhung stressed that folk culture is an open, evolving asset. Securing its future, she said, means actively inviting young creators into the process.
On the institutional front, she called for tighter copyright and data protection rules as cultural heritage goes digital, labeling intellectual property a growing flashpoint.
Codifying those rules would bring transparency and accountability to data use, turning folk culture into a reliable bedrock for innovation, and helping hit the targets in the Government’s strategy for cultural industries through 2030, with a vision to 2045./.
