Vientiane (VNA) – Home to more than 500 Vietnamese-language books, the Vietnamese Bookcase at Phat Tich Pagoda in Vientiane has become a familiar destination for students of the pagoda’s free Vietnamese classes, serving as a bridge nurturing a love for the Vietnamese language, culture, and knowledge among the Lao community.
Nearly ten years ago, when free Vietnamese classes at Phat Tich Pagoda were first held on a regular basis, learners expressed the need for additional study materials. In response, Nguyen Thi Thu Huyen, a Vietnamese expatriate living in Laos, initiated the idea of establishing the “Vietnamese Bookcase”.
Huyen told the Vietnam News Agency that the collection initially featured fewer than 100 books, mostly contributed by members of the Vietnamese community. Today, it has grown to include over 500 volumes spanning language, culture, history, geography, medicine, and science. Many valuable publications have also been donated by the State Committee for Overseas Vietnamese Affairs (SCOVA), further enriching the collection’s diversity and usefulness for learners.
Among the regular visitors to the bookcase is Lao student Thatdao Santhavai, who has studied Vietnamese at the pagoda for about two years. Working in the healthcare sector, she often reads Vietnamese medical books to improve both her professional knowledge and vocabulary, finding the materials highly beneficial to her work.
Since 2016, with support from the pagoda and efforts of the Vietnamese community, both the free Vietnamese-language classes and the bookcase have been sustained. The two initiatives complement each other, contributing to a growing movement of Vietnamese learning and reading in Laos. SCOVA has repeatedly donated books and plans to provide additional bookcases for the Vietnamese community in Champasak province, helping expand the reading culture and language-learning activities across the country.
The Vietnamese classes at Phat Tich Pagoda are unique in that all teachers are volunteers – Vietnamese nationals living and working in Laos. They not only teach the language but also foster appreciation for Vietnamese culture. The classes attract both Vietnamese expatriates and Lao learners, including government officials seeking to enhance their Vietnamese proficiency for professional and cultural exchange purposes. As such, the classes have become a vivid symbol of Vietnam–Laos friendship, connecting people of the two nations through language and shared learning.
Looking ahead, Huyen and her team plan to digitise the bookcase, uploading materials to online platforms so that overseas Vietnamese and Lao readers with an interest in the Vietnamese language can easily access them. If realised, the digital project will extend the reach of Vietnamese-language resources to communities in other provinces of Laos, including those unable to visit Vientiane directly.
More than just a collection of books, the Vietnamese Bookcase at Phat Tich Pagoda stands as a meaningful symbol of cultural preservation and exchange, a testament to the enduring bond between Vietnam and Laos, and to the belief that “as long as the language endures, the nation endures.”/.
