04/08/2016
Hung King historical relic site located in Nghĩa Linh Mountain, ancient Phong Châu area, now is in the location of Hy Cương commune, Việt Trì city, Phú Thọ province. Annually, on the festival (from the 1st to 10th March Lunar Calendar), a large number tourists visit the site, illustrating the traditional cultural characters and the philosophy “when you drink water, remember the source”. To find out about the preparation for this year festival and the assurance of environmental sanitation in the relic site, the Environment Magazine had an interview with Mr. Lưu Quang Huy, Director of the Relic Site.
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| Mr. Lưu Quang Huy – Director of the Hung King Historical Relic Site |
Reporter: Can you tell us some outstanding results of the Hung King Historical Relic Site in environmental protection linked with the maintenance and promotion of traditional cultural values?
Mr. Lưu Quang Huy: In recent years, with the attention, leadership and instruction of the Provincial Party Committee, People’s Council, People’s Committee, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, the Management Board of the Hung King Historical Relic Site has collaborated with functional agencies to realize and implement effectively policies and guidance of the Party and environmental protection legislations; to implement guiding documents and propagate the Inter-ministerial Circular guiding environmental protection in tourism, festivals, protection and promotion of relic values; collaborated with the Phú Thọ Department of Natural Resources and Environment to implement the environmental protection plan during the festival.
During the festival from the 1st to 10th lunar March, the number of tourists is very high, could be 2 million people in peak days, the Relic Site Management Board has collaborated with local authorities to propagate, educate and mobilize local people to seriously implement regulations on business and environmental protection; assigned staff to patrol and guard 24h/day in the temple, pagoda, Hung King museum and Hung Temple National Forest to remind and guide tourists to throw rubbish in appropriate areas… In addition, the Board assigned the Center for environmental service and technical infrastructure to provide 200 rubbish bins and 10 public toilets with signposts to support tourists; established the environmental sanitation team consisting of 60 people to collect wastes two times a day and transport to storage areas as regulated. All wastes are classified, some transported to the provincial waste treatment facility, some sent to landfills or incineration in empty land areas; the Board has also prepared vehicles and necessary conditions for response to environmental incidents…to create clean - beautiful environmental landscape but ensure the solemnity.
With achieved results, the Hung King historical relic site was awarded the Second Class Labour Medal (in 2012) by the President, Emulation Flag of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism (in 2012) and many merits of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and Phu Tho People’s Committee. Particularly, in 2015, the Hung King historical relic site was awarded the merit and commemoration cup by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment as a typical advanced entity on environmental protection during 2011 - 2015.
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Hung King Historical Relic Site |
Reporter: Does the Hung King Festival 2016 have new activities compared to previous years?
Mr. Lưu Quang Huy: This year, the Hung King Festival will take place from 12 - 16/4/2016 (6th - 10th lunar March) under the chairmanship of the Phu Tho Provincial People’s Committee and with the participation of three provinces: Hưng Yên, Bình Thuận and Cà Mau according to the Yearly Hung King Anniversary Organization Scheme approved by the Prime Minister.
Similar to previous years, this year festival consists of “Worship” and “Game”. At the “Worship”, there will be the incense offering to memorialize Hung Kings organized on 10th lunar March according to the traditional ceremony, to ensure the solemnity, importance and community characteristics, in order to honour the heritage “Hung King worship belief - fatherland”. A new aspect of this year festival is the document by the Phu Tho Provincial People’s Committee sent to the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism to request provinces and cities in Việt Nam where are the home of Hung King temples to conduct the incense offering on the 10th lunar March. The “game” is organized in Việt Trì city and Hung King historical relic site. In addition to traditional cultural activities such as copper drum beat and pounding; chung cake making competition, glutinous rice dumpling pounding; cultural camps... there is a photo exhibition with the topic on “Hung King worship belief - traditional characteristics” in Hung King Museum; an exhibition of “Phu Tho tourism beautiful pictures” to exhibit, introduce and advertise Phu Tho tourism; arts programs to welcome the festival with the topic “Traditional sacredness - Hung King Fatherland “ on 8 p.m, 12th April 2016 (6th lunar March). Furthermore, there is an open Viet Tri swimming festival in Van Lang Lake; exhibitions of pictures, photos and poem works of Phu Tho artists; street festival; traditional swimming in Lo River... Particularly, to ensure the safety and comfort of tourists, the Organization Committee will implement “five No”: No traffic jam; no tourist scramble, no fake products; No overpriced, No environmental pollution and no beggars at the festival.
Reporter: Currently, many relics are developing towards ecological and spiritual tourism linked with conservation of traditional culture. Is this content integrated in the development plan of the Hung King Historical Relic Site?
Mr. Lưu Quang Huy: Hung King Historical Relic Site is a spiritual relic; therefore, the development towards ecological and spiritual tourism linked with traditional culture conservation is an evitable trend. We want, through the mass media, to propagate and advertise the potentials and the look of Phú Thọ tourism in general and of the Hung King historical relic site in particular, at same time to call for projects investing on humanity tourism resources, to conserve and develop the non-material cultural values of Phú Thọ hát xoan (singing) and the belief in Hung King worship. Accordingly, Phú Thọ has developed three major cultural - festival tourism products; Relaxation, food, entertainment; Ecology, landscape and relaxation with nuclear focus of the Hung Temple with Hung King dynasty cultural values (Hung Temple, Au Co temple, Lac Long Quan temple, relics worshipping wives, children and generals of Hung King…); Thanh Thuy hot mineral water tourism site, Xuan Son National Park... simultaneously, are connected to tours and tourism routes by developing internal tourism routes (routes connecting Viet Tri tourism centre to key tourism areas in the province) and inter-provincial tourism routes (connecting with famous sites in three provinces Phú Thọ - Yên Bái – Lào Cai and Northeast and Northwest provinces)…
Reporter: Can you share with us solutions to conserve and sustainably develop the Hung King Historical Relic Site in the upcoming time?
Mr. Lưu Quang Huy: in the upcoming time, the Hung King historical relic site will continue to finalize policies and mechanisms on protection and promotion of cultural heritage values, of which to focus on developing and specifying the Master Plan on conservation and promotion of the Hung King historical relic site during 2015 - 2025, submitted to the Prime Minister for approval; the Project “conservation and promotion of Hung King worship belief values during 2015 - 2020, vision to 2025” approved by the Provincial People’s Committee as premises for infrastructure and techniques to meet the increasing demands of domestic and international tourists to visit the relic site. In addition, capacity will be increased to ensure the professionality and competitiveness and international integration. In the short-term, the Management Board of the Hung King historical relic site organises trainings on skills, knowledge, expertise on heritage, foreign languages for staff, business entities and communities within the Relic, aiming to develop cultural and friendly characters; has policies to attract, encourage and create conditions for enterprises to participate in investing in management and exploitation of tourism services; organises training classes on heritages; introduces the potentials and strengths of the historical relic site in the mass media; collaborates with the Viet Nam National Administration of Tourism, Viet Nam Tourism Association, Viet Nam Society of Travel Agents, Phu Tho Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism to promote and advertise the tourism potentials in key markets nationwide.
In addition, the Management Board of the Hung King historical relic site continues to promote the propaganda, education and awareness raising of the community on conservation and development of cultural heritages; disseminate viewpoints and policies of the Party and the State on the roles and positions of cultural heritages in the national economy sector system; develop and promulgate mechanisms, policies and legal documents to increase the role of state management, to ensure security, safety and environmental sanitation in relic sites; enhance the supervision and monitoring of the compliance with regulations on tourism, social order and safety, food sanitation and safety, and green - clean - beautiful environment maintenance■
Bùi Hằng
(Implemented)
