The State Committee for Overseas Vietnamese Affairs hosted a seminar in Hanoi on Sept. 14 to seek ways to preserve Vietnamese culture and language among the overseas Vietnamese community.

Representatives from relevant agencies and ministries joined delegates of overseas Vietnamese working in the media sector in Poland , Germany , Laos , France , the Czech Republic , Russia and the US .

Deputy Foreign Minister Nguyen Thanh Son, who is also Head of the Committee, stressed that the preservation of Vietnamese cultural identities and language is an urgent task set for the overseas Vietnamese community and the Vietnamese-language mass media both at home and abroad plays an important role in this regard.

Nearly 4.5 million Vietnamese people living and working abroad are meeting difficulties in passing down their national culture and language on younger generations due to pressure from the integration process and inadequate access to materials and the media in Vietnamese, he said.

“Recently I had a chance to meet with many overseas Vietnamese youths but few of them can speak their mother tongue or know well about Vietnam ’s culture,” said the Deputy FM.

The preservation of Vietnamese culture and language needs a coordination between domestic agencies and overseas Vietnamese organisations as well as coordination among Vietnamese communities in different countries, Son stressed.

Delegates at the seminar recommended a number of solutions such as compiling textbooks for teaching Vietnamese in different languages, promoting cultural exchanges, especially between young overseas Vietnamese and their peers in Vietnam, and establishing Vietnamese centres in foreign countries./.