Hà Nội ensures safety during Tết holiday festivals

HÀ NỘI – The Hà Nội People’s Committee has directed departments and branches to strengthen management and ensure social order and safety during the festival season of Tết (Lunar New Year). 

Gióng Festival, organised annually at Mê Linh District, Hà Nội, was listed on the UNESCO List of Intangible Cultural Heritage. VNA/VNS Photo Hiền Anh.

Districts are assigned to review and compile a list of festivals, as well as the management and organisation programmes of the festival according to regulations. 

Localities are assigned to develop festival programmes to ensure environmental hygiene, food safety, and disease prevention, as well as ensure security, safety and fire prevention. Localities need to preserve and protect relics, and religious facilities in festival areas. 

Within the grounds of the monument, the city mandates that places and services must be arranged diagrammatically for the benefit of tourists. The locations of the festival’s burn-votive-paper locations and entertainment venues must be publicised by the local government. A summary table provides an overview of the monument’s artistic, cultural, architectural, and historical significance.

The city encourages each monument to place only one common incense burner, as well as to instruct visitors not to place offerings or merit money on altars, which could affect the sanctity of the relics. Visitors are encouraged to maintain hygiene and protect the environmental landscape to avoid harming relics and historical landscapes.

The city will accelerate the construction and replication of models of monuments following a set of criteria of the cultural environment in traditional festivals.

The City People’s Committee establishes an interdisciplinary inspection team to inspect the management and organisation of the festivals in Hà Nội to promptly handle negative violations of heritage such as damaging monuments and religious facilities. 

Hà Nội’s Department of Culture and Sports also establishes two inspection teams to supervise festival activities and handle organisations and individuals who take advantage of the festival according to regulations.

The two teams aim to promptly prevent and strictly handle organisations and individuals who increase prices and engage in superstition and illegal business. 

Hà Nội will also organise a conference to discuss pilot models for building a cultural environment in festival activities, aiming to improve the effectiveness of preservation work, as well as promote traditional festivals in the capital.

The City People’s Committee has launched a hotline for giving feedback on Tết festivals via 0965404557. 

Hà Nội has one of the greatest number of festivals in the nation, with 1,206 held throughout the year, mostly in the spring. Therefore, the cultural sector, as well as all levels and branches of the city, are involved in the management and organisation of festivals to ensure civilised traditions and safety. – VNS