Building Hue into a UNESCO Creative City through culinary values

On September 22, in Hue city, the National Institute of Culture and Arts Vietnam cooperated with the Institute for Development Studies of Thua Thien-Hue province to organize a scientific workshop on "UNESCO Creative Cities Network and the ability to transform cultural resources in Hue."

Oriented as As an ecological heritage city, Thua Thien-Hue is a locality with many unique cultural resources such as cuisine, crafts and folk arts.

This is also a challenge for the province to identify and select areas for building creative urban models when participating in the UNESCO Creative Cities Network (UCCN).

At the workshop, experts, professional consultants, managers, agencies, businesses and individuals practicing innovation across the country shared experiences of cities participating in the UCCN network, helping Thua Thien-Hue meet the criteria and soon register in the network.

Many domestic experts and leaders of Thua Thien-Hue province believe that cuisine is a feasible and suitable approach for the locality to build a creative city when joining the UCCN network.

Associate Professor, Dr. Nguyen Thi Thu Phuong, Director of the Vietnam National Institute of Culture and Arts, shared that if choosing the culinary field, the process of preparing data for the application to become a member of the UCCN network in 2025 or 2027, needs to be implemented with a systematic roadmap right now and should refer to the experience of Jeonju city (Korea) during the implementation process.

Currently, there are some criteria of the culinary profile of the UCCN network that are recognized as Hue's strengths and need to be promoted.

It is the "culinary capital of Vietnam," positioning Hue as the culinary focal point of Southeast Asia; the diversity of dishes from royal to folk and vegetarian; the connection between cuisine and the cultural space of the ancient capital, folk art and Ao Dai costumes.

Standing Deputy Secretary of the Thua Thien-Hue Provincial Party Committee Phan Ngoc Tho said that Hue cuisine has 1,700 out of 3,000 dishes in Vietnam recorded in the Nguyen Dynasty's Code of Conduct; the preparation of dishes is considered a cultural way of life.

Over the years, the province has made efforts to preserve and promote traditional values, promote creativity for culinary development, contribute to creating livelihoods, solving jobs, income for people and creating unique local cultural and tourism products.

This is in line with the requirements that UNESCO sets for candidates joining the network.

Regarding the issue of building brands for traditional Hue culinary products, Dr. Ho Thang, Director of the Department of Science and Technology of Thua Thien-Hue province, said that one of the solutions is to use the intellectual property system as a competitive tool to develop brands in the face of the current globalization trend.

It is necessary to build a value chain in product development and implement a framework of solutions to support the development of key provincial products associated with the value chain.

Many good ideas were also raised at the workshop to orient the development of Hue's cultural and creative industries; cooperation opportunities between Hue and other cities in the UCCN network.

A typical example is the idea of ​​building Vietnamese Ao Dai into a creative and industrialized product of the country, seen from the experience of developing Hanbok of the Korean people, in which Hue plays the role of the Capital of Vietnamese Ao Dai.

The UNESCO Creative Cities Network was launched in 2004 with the aim of promoting cooperation among cities that consider creativity as a strategic element for sustainable urban development. To date, 301 cities worldwide have joined the UCCN.

In Vietnam, Hanoi is the only city recognized as a UNESCO Creative City in the field of design in 2019, creating leverage for other cities across the country to join this network.