Advantages and Challenges in the Management and Conservation Works in Hoi An Ancient Town

Advantages and Challenges in the Management and Conservation Works in Hoi An Ancient Town

Jun.04, 2017

The conservation of urban heritage is a unique activity with many levels, techniques and various stakeholders involved. When it’s placed in the context of sustainable urban development and climate change it becomes even more complex. Hoi An is a city in such a context.

Lying downstream of the Thu Bon River in the coastal plains of the Quang Nam Province, Vietnam, and about 30 km from Da Nang City in the south, Hoi An is an ancient town that was well-known as a thriving international commercial port and the meeting place of merchant ships from Japan, China, and the West in the 17th and 18th centuries. In the 19th century, due to the transportation in the Thu Bon River no longer being convenient, the Hoi An port town gradually recessed and gave up the important role as a commercial port to Da Nang when it was built by the French. Fortunately, Hoi An was not heavily affected by wars and avoided the massive urbanization in the late 20th century. In the early 1980s, scholars and tourists began to pay attention to Hoi An for its architectural and cultural values and made this place become one of the most attractive tourist destinations of Vietnam. Hoi An today is a special case of traditional port markets in Southeast Asia that was well preserved. During the trip to Vietnam from March 1st to March 7th, 2017, my classmates and I from the Cultural Resources Management Program of Kanazawa University had a two-day visit to the Hoi An ancient town to observe the ways of preserving and managing the heritage that was done by local authorities and residents in this area. On the first day, we had attended a lecture from Mr. Pham Phu Ngoc, a vice-director of the Hoi An Center for Cultural Heritage Management and Preservation. On the second day, we had personal time to observe how conservation works at Hoi An. During my stay there, I gained a considerable amount of knowledge about management and how conservation works in Hoi An. It may be divided into 2 points as follows:

First, the management and preservation of the cultural heritage system in Hoi An city is assigned to the Hoi An Center for Cultural Heritage Management and Preservation. This center is directly under the City Committee of Hoi An. The main function of the center is to directly manage all risks of the conservation works; organize research activities, collect the documents, conduct preservation activities and traditional architecture restorations, directly advice to the City Committee on licensing and supervising the renovation of the monuments in the Old Quarter, and display exhibitions to introduce and promote the values of the cultural heritage. TheHoi An ancient town has always cooperated with UNESCO, in conjunction with experts and scientists from domestic and international universities and research institutes to preserve and promote the values of many aspects of the architectural works. Many member-staffs of the center have a learning experience and got trained both long-term and short-term abroad. In particular, the center also received volunteers from the DED (Germany) and the JICA (Japan) to work in Hoi An. These are the advantages of management and conservation in Hoi An.

Secondly, there are also challenges of management and conservation works in Hoi An. Along with the urbanization process, the growth of population, as well as the number of tourists, Hoi An is facing many risks in the preservation of heritage. Through observation, I found that most of the old houses on the roads with a large number of tourists in Hoi An are used as souvenir shops. According to the statistics of the Hoi An Center for Cultural Heritage Management and Preservation, 90.3% of the houses are used for tourists, such as hotels, motels, restaurants, souvenir shops etc. 35.1% of those houses were rented by nonlocal people for business, and nearly 64% of the tenants did not have relationships with the old town. Thus, we can see the phenomenon of original residents moving out and renting their old houses to serve tourism and earn income from tourism. This is a situation that does not support the real picture of a living heritage. In addition, the preservation of this legacy has encountered many difficulties and often faces the degradation of old houses. The material used to make houses in Hoi An was wood and the houses were built before the 19th century. Also, due to the naturally harsh conditions of the region, such as hot and rainy weather, and the annual flooding, in particular, caused many houses to be severely damaged and in danger of collapsing at any time. Not only that but the funding to restore these buildings is a major problem for the government and local people. To rebuild a structure in accordance with the current regulations on heritage preservation, the funding is often 3 to 4 times higher than building a new house. To create traditional materials used for the restoration work is also difficult. Currently, bricks and tiles that are produced locally are not good enough in terms of both quality and size of the material. The type of wood that was used to build houses in Hoi An is called "Kien Kien". This type of wood is very scarce and very rarely found elsewhere other than in the Quang Nam province. Moreover, the management team of the restoration work and the technical staff do not have enough experience or expertise. The pressure on the tourism development also directly impacts the conservation work. On the other hand, tourism development has brought significant revenue for Residents and improved livelihoods for local people. However, a large number of tourists have led to an overloaded infrastructure. These are major challenges for conservation work in Hoi An as well as local authorities and related management which have to be faced in the present and the future. 

Nguyen Huy Nham (NHN)

Professors and students from Kanazawa University

Bài đăng trên http://crm.hs.kanazawa-u.ac.jp/en/news/detail.php?id=164 

A way of preserving and promoting the value of lacquerware in Wajima city

Nov.21, 2016

Wajima is a big city of Noto Peninsula in Ishikawa prefecture. The City has a harbor and its position faces the Sea of Japan. This is the most famous city for lacquerware that is well-known as Wajimanuri. The local lacquerware is distinguished for its durability, which is achieved the highest level of extra technique of coating. To create a single piece of Wajima lacquerware requires a number of specialized artisans and dozens of processes. There is a very famous place which keeps important roles in preserving and promoting the value of lacquerware in Wajima city is the Wajima Museum of Lacquerware (urushi nuri).

On the sunny morning of August 3^th, 2016, our class from the Cultural Resource Management (CRM) program in Kanazawa University had a lucky opportunity to visit Wajima Museum of Lacquerware Art in Wajima city under the guidance of our teachers and Ms. Suzanne Ross who has a large amount of experience in making and promoting values of Wajimanuri and has lived in Wajima city more than 20 years.

The Museum includes two main floors, with the first floor is used a small space for the sale of Wajimanuri (museum shop) and the second floor is specially designed with 4 galleries and a free library. Here, we have listened to the detailed introduction about the museum from Ms. Suzanne Ross, we knew this is the only specialized museum in Lacquerware Art in Japan with a large number of lacquer artworks made by artisans in many different time periods. And many of those artists are recognized as "Living National Cultural Treasure".

The content of the museum exhibition includes not only the local lacquer products but also have a lot of lacquer products from other locations in Japan and abroad. It also provided visitors an overview of the process of how to make Wajimanuri. The following diagram summarizes basic steps of the process when making a wooden bowl using Wajimanuri technique[1]:

In all of steps in making Wajima Lacquerware bowl above, the steps of decorating with Makieand Chinkin have given me a great pleasure. Maki-e is  especially a decorative technique which was made by two main steps, such as: drawing pattern in first time and then sprinkling gold, silver, and colored powders onto the surface of urushi. Chinkin is another decorative technique which made by two steps. The first step is to carve and express the images on the surface. The next step is to put the gold powder or gold foil into grooves.This is the most difficult technique when creating these art pieces of lacquer. Thus, the craftsmen who can apply this technique are people who spent many years of experience and rarely make mistakes. However, in recent years, the number of Maki-e craftsmen and Chinkin craftsmen are decreased.

Another particularly important factor that I need to mention here is urushi. Do you know what is urushi? It is the essential source as raw material to make special properties of Wajimanuri. Urushi is the name of lacquer in Japanese and is tree sap collected from the lacquer trees, which grow in the Orient. Lacquer trees grow in Japan, China, Korea, Myanmar, Vietnam and so on. The component of urushi trees in Japan is a little bit different from the ones found throughout, Myanma and Viet Nam. Most of urushi used for Wajimanuri is mainly produced in China because of the components.  In usually, it must take 12-15 years for an urushi tree to develope to collect its sap. Urushi trees planted throughout Japan during the Edo period (1603－1868) as commodities with high economic value. However, Wajima city was not the production center of urushi. Although a project began to plant the urushi tree in Wajima city to take the sap, the amount is not much so far.

Presently, Wajima lacquerware is designated as an Important Intangible Cultural Art in Japan and it is considered an art. The art of lacquer requires a lot of time creating products and the artisans must be experienced enough to take part in the creative processes of lacquerware. To become an artist in this field, the craftsmen need to gain experience and learn about the techniques of making lacquerware over a long time to be able to create out beautiful products. Some craftsmen who have their personal aesthetic try to produce newly lacquered works in different ways. Many of them have the potential to be good artists “Living National Treasures” in Japan. They are also the people who maintain and participate in the training of new generations to preserve and develop the traditional handicrafts. Through the observation of this museum's exhibitions, and also a participation in a lecture by staff in Wajima City Hall, I was impressed that local government and people of the city have a very high awareness and responsibility in maintaining and promoting the image of Wajimanuri.

This trip has given me the basic understanding of lacquer ware, but it is more important for me to know about the difficulty and complexity of making lacquer products. I also better understand the value of Wajimanuri. The value of Wajimanuri is not only from the good quality of urushi trees and sap but also in shaping effort, meticulous decoration and the feats of artists who make it. Moreover, Wajimanuri is valuable by the efforts in maintaining and promoting traditional handicrafts by craftsmen, local government, and local authorities to develop tourism. Thus the Wajima Museum of Lacquerware Art has succeeded in promoting the value of urushi lacquer ware to visitors.

                                                                                                             Nguyen Huy Nham (N.H.N)

http://crm.hs.kanazawa-u.ac.jp/en/news/detail.php?id=157

[1]Wajimanuri Lacquerware, Traditional Japanese handicraft, pages 4-5.

Ms. Suzanne Ross