A thousand years of moss and age
Broken bricks in the fading light
Who will hold them in safekeeping
For the children yet to come
There are heritages we only ever see in photographs — distant, silent, as if belonging to another world. And there are heritages that, thanks to a door opened at just the right moment, step fully into our lives, sit down beside us, and tell their stories. To me, the digitization of heritage — bringing temples, old quarters, and brick towers into virtual reality and the metaverse — belongs to the second kind.
I do not write these lines as an outsider. Since taking on a role at the Creative Development Board for Cultural Industries, under the Vietnam Cultural Industries Development Association, I have had the chance to sit closer to two kinds of people who once seemed worlds apart: those who keep heritage and those who build technology. The closer I sit, the more clearly I see how strangely they need each other. In an earlier piece, I wrote that beauty needs a hand. Today I want to write on — some kinds of beauty also need a door.
I am moved by the moment a young person puts on a virtual reality headset and steps into Diên Hựu Pagoda of the Lý dynasty — the original One Pillar Pagoda, reconstructed by researchers together with the technologists working alongside the Association, from the Sùng Thiện Diên Linh stele and archaeological artifacts. That pagoda, in the real world, has not stood whole for nearly a thousand years. But in the digital realm, there it stands — complete, graceful, as if never lost.
I am moved by the way viewers can "travel through time" into the scroll painting Trúc Lâm Đại Sĩ Xuất Sơn Đồ, walking among figures of the Trần dynasty, gazing at costumes and rituals — things that until now lay still behind museum glass. The painting has not changed. The viewer has. From standing outside looking in, they are invited inside.
And I am moved most of all by those who may never in their lives set foot in Sơn Đoòng or climb every stone step of an ancient tower — a child in the mountains, an elderly person whose legs have grown weak, a Vietnamese living half a world away. For them, the real journey is not yet possible. But a journey in the digital realm is — today, from a classroom, a museum, a small room.
Some will ask: how can seeing Huế through a headset compare to standing in the Imperial City listening to the rain? I agree — no technology can replace the scent of incense in an old hall, the clatter of wooden clogs on the streets of Hội An, the chill of early mist drifting across a Cham tower. Digitizing heritage, to me, was never meant to replace the real experience. It was born to do two things, humble yet immense: to open a door for those who cannot yet come, and to keep heritage safe for those not yet born. Today's scan is an insurance of memory for a hundred years hence — wood may rot, brick may wear away, but data kept with care endures. And strangely enough, those who have met heritage in the digital realm rarely stop there — they want to go and stand before it. The digital door does not close people in. It leads them onward.
I dream of a day when Huế, Hội An, and Mỹ Sơn stand whole in the digital realm — every tiled roof, every brick, every motif recorded with care, so that anyone, anywhere, can touch a piece of the Vietnamese soul. No one can build that dream alone — it needs researchers, artisans, engineers, policy, and people willing to walk the long road. I still believe what I often remind myself: no one goes far alone. At the Creative Development Board, we choose to be the ones who join those hands together.
Our ancestors left us temples and old quarters with no instructions attached — only a quiet faith that their descendants would know how to keep them. Our generation is fortunate to be handed one more tool our forebears never held. Used with gratitude and with care, I believe Vietnamese heritage will not only be preserved — it will be retold, in the very language of its own era, for those far away and those who have not yet arrived.
Heritage does not sleep. It is only waiting for a door.
Đà Nẵng, August 2026 — Nguyễn Ngọc Hải