About this website
After seeing off successive generations of foreign invaders - Chinese, French, Japanese, American - Việt Nam became a united communist state in 1975. Since the late 1980s it has moved forward on the path of free-market reform under the banner of
đổi mới ('renovation'), opening its doors to the rest of the world and offering a wealth of new opportunities for international cultural exchange.
The Việt Nam Cultural Profile represents the first major attempt to map the cultural infrastructure of one of South East Asia's most exciting countries. It incorporates sector-by-sector guide to Archives, Competitions and Awards, Ethnic Culture, Festivals, Film, Cultural Funding, Cultural Policy and Infrastructure, Cultural Research, Cultural Training, Heritage, International Exchange, Libraries, Literature, Mass Culture, Media (Broadcasting, Press, Publishing, Internet), Performing Arts, Tourism and Visual Arts. Each sectoral overview concludes with a detailed directory of key contact organisations, making it possible not only to learn about what is happening in a particular cultural sector, but also to make direct contact with the key people working in it.
A collaborative project between Visiting Arts and the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism of Việt Nam, the Việt Nam Cultural Profile is one of three online cultural guides to the countries of the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) - see also the
Cambodia Cultural Profile and the
Laos Cultural Profile. All three have been created with financial support from the
Rockefeller Foundation.
Targeted at cultural professionals, yet packed full of information and images which will be of interest to the cultural tourist, the Việt Nam Cultural Profile forms part of a new and highly authoritative global source of web intelligence on culture.
