A Tay woman spends 20 years preserving traditional culture and developing community tourism.

For 20 years, Ms. Hai has built Thai Hai Village – a community of four generations of Tay people living together in nearly century-old stilt houses to preserve their ancestral culture and develop community tourism.

VietNamNet•18/06/2025

Located approximately 12km from the center of Thai Nguyen city, the Thai Hai Stilt House Village Ecotourism Conservation Area (Thai Hai Village) is nestled amidst hills and vegetation in Thinh Duc commune, Thai Nguyen province.

In Thai Hai village, there are 30 stilt houses, some of which are hundreds of years old. This is not only a place for preserving traditional cultural values combined with nature conservation, but also a place to recreate the customs, traditions, and cultural life of the Tay and Nung ethnic groups.

With its rustic charm and rich traditional culture of the ethnic minority people, Thai Hai village has created a magical attraction in recent years, drawing tens of thousands of domestic and international tourists. Thai Hai has also become a community tourism village and an attractive tourist destination in Thai Nguyen province.

Dressed in the simple traditional attire of the Tay people, Mrs. Nguyen Thi Thanh Hai (60 years old) enthusiastically recounted the story of Thai Hai Village, which she and many of her fellow villagers had worked hard to build over the years.

Ms. Hai said that the idea of community-based tourism came to her about 20 years ago. The Tay people are still there, but their traditional clothing and stilt houses no longer retain their original character. It is very difficult to find a cluster of villages that still have intact stilt houses, and many of their cultural traditions have faded away.

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In Thai Hai village, the traditional cultures of the Tay, Nung, and other ethnic groups are still preserved.

She hopes to preserve the customs and traditions passed down from her ancestors and the rural products that can sustain her descendants, in a self-sufficient manner. However, she admits that the biggest challenge lies in awareness and the human factor.

With the encouragement of her family and relatives, she quietly undertook a task that many described as "a drop in the ocean." She carefully saved her personal assets to buy back stilt houses, collect artifacts, and preserve intangible cultural heritage that was in danger of disappearing or being lost.

“There were many nights when I and my companions had to sleep in the forest so that the next day we could continue our journey to find stilt houses that were in danger of being demolished, to collect them and bring them back. When we ran out of money, I had to trade with the villagers for rice, blankets, essential supplies, and then ask to keep whatever they wanted to throw away,” she recalled.

Initially, there were a few people, then a few households, and gradually an entire village was formed, known as the Thai Hai Ethnic Ecological Stilt House Village Conservation Area. Here, four ethnic groups live together, united in their efforts to preserve Tay culture right in this impoverished area on the outskirts of Thai Nguyen city.

This is the shared home of over 150 people from various ethnic groups such as Tay, Nung, San Chay, Kinh, etc. All activities are self-sufficient. They preserve, cultivate, and process green tea themselves, and brew rượu (rice wine) according to the unique process of the Tay ethnic group to maintain a clean food source and avoid impacting the environment.

The village has established a complex of 30 stilt houses, almost perfectly reconstructed from the old house structures in the Định Hóa safe zone. It is home to a community living in indigo clothing, with traditional crafts, festivals, and folk games, and some families have four generations living together.

Ms. Hai said that in the beginning, people had to dig house foundations by hand; everything was done manually because machinery couldn't be used to assist in house construction. People also raised livestock and poultry for food, planted acacia trees to improve the soil, and dug holes on the hillsides…

From its initial purpose of preserving traditional stilt houses and the stilt house culture of the Tay ethnic group, Thai Hai Village officially opened for tourism in 2011. Currently, the village has become an attractive destination for domestic tourists and visitors from nearly 40 countries and territories worldwide; it has the capacity to accommodate and serve over 1,200 guests with food, lodging, and other services simultaneously.

In recent years, the cuisine of Thai Hai Village has consistently ranked among the top restaurants in Vietnam meeting the highest standards for serving tourists. Notably, at the end of 2017, the Thai Hai Ethnic Village Ecological Stilt House Conservation Area was awarded a Certificate of Protection by the Vietnam Federation of UNESCO Associations, recognizing it as a "project with value in preserving traditional culture and educating the spirit of national unity."

The Thai Hai Ethnic Village Ecological Reserve has also been honored with the ASEAN Tourism Award four times. "When I started, I didn't think the model could be as successful as it is now," she admitted.

According to Ms. Hai, Vietnam has many ethnic groups with their own unique identities, and each season has its own special fruits and vegetables. Therefore, with unity and support from the government, more community-based tourism villages can be successfully developed, and people can live, love, and support each other in their homeland.

Source: https://vietnamnet.vn/nguoi-phu-nu-tay-20-nam-bao-ton-van-hoa-truyen-thong-lam-du-lich-cong-dong-2214364.html