Vivid Việt Nam, a festival on Vietnamese culture in Lorient, France in July 2025. Photo courtesy of Toucher Art

HÀ NỘI — Policy makers, former ambassadors, business owners, college lecturers, tour operators and young entrepreneurs in Việt Nam and Europe got together in a panel discussion jointly organised by the Việt Nam News and Law under the Vietnam News Agency and the Department of Grassroots and Foreign Service Information under the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, on July 10 to nail down proposals on a strategy to define the country's signature.

The panel discussed serious issues regarding the country's identity, its people's will and practices and offered valuable ideas to be included in the draft to design a country-level approach to convey Việt Nam's identity to the world.

Nguyễn Lê Khánh, based in Germany, voiced the wish of the Vietnamese community in the country to lend a hand in spreading Vietnamese culinary culture further in Europe. VNS Photo

Nguyễn Lê Khánh from Germany told the discussion that overseas Vietnamese would love to be part of a greater country campaign to boost Việt Nam identity even stronger in Europe.

"Thailand has a campaign to have a restaurant in each European country; Korea has its Halleyu campaign, we don't need to do the restaurant thing, because in my city in Germany, there are 50 Vietnamese restaurants already. But we would be happy to contribute to a grand campaign initiated by the government to boost Việt Nam's signature even stronger."

Students wearing Vietnamese ancient robes in a fashion parade in France. Photo courtesy of Toucher Ar

Nguyễn Lê Hạnh Nhi, a college sophomore in Việt Nam representing Toucher Art, a non-government organisation focused on art education for school children based in France, and a member of Art Space of France suggested that the government of Việt Nam could join their activities to introduce 45-minute Vietnamese sessions to middle and high schools in France.

"It would not be a heavy education time, it'll be an activity, where we would create woodblock paintings together," Hạnh Nhi told the discussion.

Nhi and other students have just returned from an eventful summer in France, where they held fashion walks, aired a documentary on Vietnamese culture in packed cinema theatres, offered concerts and shows of Vietnamese music, and attracted more than 20,000 participants.

"Over the past three years, we have saved VNĐ500 million (US$19,000) to help five orphanages, teached an art class, and funded a computer room and children in need back here in Việt Nam," Hạnh Nhi said.

"We would like to propose to the government to bring a Việt Nam pavilion to world famous expos, such as the Foire de Paris, jointly organise Festival Việt Nam in a series of cities or countries, develop Vietnamese language classes or establish a Vietnamese language department at colleges around the world."

From another perspective, Former Ambassador to Denmark Lương Thanh Nghị said at the discussion: "Many of Danish friends have said to me: Thank you for bringing the Vietnamese kitchen to Denmark."

Further indepth remarks were provided by journalists, who also teach at the Journalism and Propaganda Academy, digging deeper into the psychology of the people at different stages of history. They also fathomed into how Việt Nam as a country with some of the humankind's worst memories of war, has evolved above its miseries to become forgiving and heading toward the future.

On people-to-peole's relations, Vietnamese people living elsewhere in the world, each and everyone can be a people's ambassador.

"I'm here to draw your attention to the food heritage of Việt Nam," said Nguyễn Lê Khánh, German representative of We Love Phở (WLP) and owner of a restaurant in Hannover.

"We want to have phở festivals in Europe, in community events. We tried to offer phở at 1 euro a bowl, or give away the hot bowl of phở to European people."

"In my capacity to provide investment consultancy to German companies wishing to do business in Việt Nam, the first thing we did after landing was to have a hot bowl of phở. We would talk business later," Khánh told the meeting.

With an office based in Brussels, Belgium, the group has been trying to put together a map of phở shops in Europe. Speaking online from Warsaw, Mai Hải Lâm, an engineer-turned-businessman, President of "We love Phở", told Việt Nam News and Law, "We hope to connect phở lovers, provide them with interesting exploration into Vietnamese cuisine traditions. We hope to preserve and spread the Vietnamese culinary traditions, bridging the past with today and further to the future.

"We hope to build our network and develop it further to make phở a cultural exchange identity card, make it loved and cherished, recognised broadly in Europe and beyond, as well as spread the culture and culinary traditions of Việt Nam."

Earlier at the beginning of Việt Nam's renewal and open-door policy, former Foreign Minister Lê Mai used to say, "Việt Nam is a country, not a war." It has, indeed, evolved and transformed from the ashes of war to become robust, caring, loving and ready to spread its arms around. VNS