To avoid heritage becoming mere “antiques” placed in glass cases to recall a bygone historical period, many communities know how to tell their own stories.
Strengthening identity through storytelling
In the context of globalization and deep international integration, cultural powers and famous destinations in the world all know how to tell their own unique stories and skillfully promote their identity through art, entertainment industry and media.
It can be said that each story is nurtured and told with love, understanding, cultural depth associated with the land, history and landscape of that place, which in itself becomes an attractive and sincere invitation, arousing in the hearts of tourists the desire to set foot, explore and experience.
Today's tourists no longer come to a city just to relax and leave, but they look for a story to live with, a memory to bring back.
With rich and diverse cultural resources from traditional to contemporary, Da Nang has much to tell, but what is lacking is a way to organize memories and share identity in an attractive and creative way. How to promote cultural heritage and historical relics to exploit originality, creative transformation and renewal through storytelling?
The city does not need to try to become a certain model, it just needs to learn how to tell stories with the heart and tell its own story deeply, intimately, and consistently, then surely visitors will not only come to see, but also to listen, sympathize, and remember forever.
The legends of Tien Sa, the myth of Ngu Hanh Son, memories of the heritage sites of Hoi An, My Son, anecdotes about craft villages along the Thu Bon River, fishermen of My Khe fishing village... need to be vividly recreated, helping viewers and listeners not only understand the historical and cultural values but also feel the connection between the past and the present.
In the digital age, storytelling through technology will help make the abstract visual, make heritage speak, and most importantly, help cities become modern, intelligent, and creative storytellers.
Of course, technology will not tell stories for people, but it can revive memories and bring cultural voices to life, making cultural experiences more accessible, especially to young people and international visitors.
A gentle touch of a finger on the QR code at the destination allows visitors to hear old stories from village communal houses, streets, river wharves to cuisine and bridges; helping viewers “live in the story”; experiencing culture that transcends borders and time.
It must be admitted that no one can tell stories about the city better than the people of Da Nang themselves. The mission of storytelling should be given to the people so that each person can become a “storyteller” of the city, passionately and honestly in their own way, thereby awakening pride, love and civic responsibility to “live worthily” in a “livable” city.
Elevate the festival
The project "Organizing unique annual cultural events and festivals, associated with establishing a series of events and cultural festivals at night in Da Nang city, period 2022-2026" has promoted and created sustainability for the brands that Da Nang has achieved as well as continued to create unique products to promote the city's image, aiming to become a leading event and festival destination in Asia by 2045, and at the same time one of the high-class, creative, green and smart eco-tourism centers.
Along with folk, traditional and historical festivals, Da Nang has had a 15-year journey of successfully organizing many unique and national and international festival events. However, festivals do not stop at quantity, scale, stage, performing arts and number of visitors, but need to improve the quality and level so that each event and festival becomes a cultural underground that nurtures identity.
Da Nang can absolutely choose its own, different path, becoming a "city of inspiration and creativity" where each festival and event will be the crystallization of the best, noblest, most unique, humane, benevolent, just and progressive values.
Along with the festivals that have created the brand, let's think about an International Festival of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Da Nang. After merging with Quang Nam in July 2025, Da Nang city will own three destinations that are cultural heritages of humanity: Hoi An Ancient Town, My Son Sanctuary and Ma Nhai Ngu Hanh Son, creating a heritage city with a rare scale and depth.
In the midst of that heritage space, an international festival is not only about lights and stages but also a place where the folk memories of peoples in the region and the world are revived, from the rhythm of the Central Highlands festival drums to Korean lantern dances, from ancient poetry recitations to Then singing, Lam Vong dances where Mong artists sit next to Lao artists, Japanese artists chat with Quang Tuong artists... If properly invested, the festival can become an international cultural brand, recognized in the UNESCO network of creative festivals, as an Asia-Pacific rendezvous for the intangible cultural heritage of humanity.
The city that “never sleeps” or the city that “rises early”?
Many cultural and tourism experts “advised” Vietnam to build “cities that never sleep” to attract tourists, and at the same time said that to reach the true “City of Events”, Da Nang is lacking one of the very important criteria: nighttime entertainment activities. In other words, Da Nang is still in the “Top cities that go to bed early”, and does not have a true “night economy” and the standard of an “Event City”, festival, and tourism.
However, from another perspective, with the characteristic of reaching out to the sea, being the economic center of the Central Highlands region, the pace of life in Da Nang is not too noisy and bustling but peaceful and gentle, associated with the characteristics of the people of Quang Nam who are inherently simple, honest, friendly, open, kind and hospitable.
While many big cities are focusing on developing “night cities” and “night economies”, Da Nang can choose a different direction, which is to become a city that “wakes up early”. Not too noisy but aiming for a more sustainable lifestyle - living with real light, with natural biological rhythms and with a culture associated with the spirit of awareness.
From a cultural perspective, Da Nang can completely develop a dawn city strategy with clear implementation axes such as building typical dawn tour tourism products, morning meditation on the sea, riverside jogging, traditional early morning markets, morning coffee spaces combined with art; urban design, investing in developing public spaces for morning parks, walking gardens combined with communication to build the image of "Da Nang - Dawn City" as a positive urban cultural symbol, easy to spread such as "Welcoming the dawn with Da Nang", "Da Nang 5AM"...
A modern, developed city is not only evaluated by economic development indicators or income from night services, but also by the fresh moments and spaces it gives its residents every day. And if Da Nang maintains the spirit of waking up early - a proactive, profound, kind and harmonious attitude towards life - then that will be the strongest soft brand that the city can spread to the world.
It takes time for a city to become a regional cultural hub – it involves vision, strategy, institutions, resources and persistence. Building Da Nang into a regional and national cultural hub is not just a policy goal, but also a journey to enrich identity, deepen community memory and create a unique identity with internal strength.
A city that knows how to tell its cultural stories in its own way is the fulcrum to avoid being swept away, not blurred, and will also be the most valuable "soft capital" for Da Nang to rise up with the nation.
Source: https://baodanang.vn/di-san-cong-nghe-va-ban-sac-da-nang-3299559.html
![[Photo] Party and State leaders visit President Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum and offer incense to commemorate Heroes and Martyrs](https://vphoto.vietnam.vn/thumb/402x226/vietnam/resource/IMAGE/2025/8/17/ca4f4b61522f4945b3715b12ee1ac46c)
Comment (0)