Thang Long - Hanoi landmark is always the pride of Vietnamese and the belief in love of international friends. Hanoi has a long history and culture.This is an ancient land which gathers the communities from along the river including Da River, Ba Vi, Tam Dao, Soc Son down to Hanoi. Before the 11^th century, Hanoi (called Dai La) was a large typical urban. Since the 11^th century, after being chosen as the capital and named Thang Long by Ly Thai To, the city not only became the political headquarter, the cultural center of the country but also gradually became the largest economic center and called Ke Cho. Then, Ke Cho was called for Thang Long. In early 15^th century, Thang Long was called Dong Do. Since the August 1945 Revolution, Hanoi has been chosen as the capital. Thang Long - Dong Do - Hanoi is one of the ancient capitals of Southeast Asia. Moreover, it is a unique city that continuously maintained its position as a political headquarter, an economic and culture center of the country in this region of the world for thousand years. It is more visible to compare this capital to the others of some Southeast Asian countries. For example, Kuala Lumpur has been the capital of Malaysia since the late 18^th century, Manila has been the capital of the Philippines from the 16^th century, Jakarta has been the capital of Indonesia from the 16^th century, Phnom Penh has been the capital of Cambodia since mid-15th century, Vientiane has been the capital of Laos since the end of the 14^th century etc. Thăng Long and Co Loa belonged to a cultural region with a long history of several thousand years, from the Dong Son to Dai Viet culture period upto now. Therefore, Co Loa was selected as the capital of the Au Lac at ancient times and then Thang Long was selected as the capital of Dai Viet at medieval era, which is an inevitable result of a long historical process. "Chiếu dời đô " – the Edict on the Transfer of the Capital written by King Ly Thai To also talks about this issue. The King pointed out clearly that the capital moved to Thang Long not only because of the King's opinion. The reasons included "to set up a capital in a big scheme career centre, to design the future for posterity forever, to obey the God's decision as well as people's opinion, to keep up the prosperous country". The new capital was located in the center of earth, dragon roll and tiger sitting position; in the middle of the South and North, East and West, in the favorable mountain river terrain and highland... This is the only landscape in Vietnam.

It is an important convergence of people across the country, the leading capital of the Kings forever.

In maner of ancient speaking, the King mentioned that "to obey God's decision and people's opinion" aimed at the truth must be followed and could not resist. It was infact the rule. The King respected the aspirations of the people so he decided to set Thang Long as the capital. Due to the quick development of economy, society, culture, people has considred this place was the center of the country for a long time.

In a shorttime, Thang Long became a huge city with the magnificent Citadel, 61 busy streets as well as the busy market areas. Many cultural buildings were built as Bao Thien Tower, Dien Huu pagoda, the Temple of Literature. Thang Long Citadel was the political, economic and cultural center of of the properous Dai Viet.

Thang Long - Hanoi is a unique culture area and also is a cultural center of the country. Therefore, the culture of Thang Long- Hanoi gathers most typical features of the locality as well as the nation. Morever, it is also popular and diversified, dynamic and enduring of Ke Cho urbanized area, and ancient capital. All of them maked specific characteristics, the traditional culture of the region "the first prosperous place in Long Thanh". Thang Long- Hanoi residents are pround of their elegance:

If it is not fragrant than at least it could be like the jasmine

If one's not elegant or gracious then at least one is a Thuong Kinh inhabitant

Thang Long- Hanoi is the convergence and crystallization culture to born the new elegance in the country in thousand years of history. Thang Long- Hanoi Culture is the combination of different materials and quintessences from other regions accross the nation. The cultural exchange of different regions is obviously, helping the culture of one region become more diversified thanked to the achievements that was shared from the others. Based on the exchange, the feature of culture in each region is shown as well as saturated with other regions's culture and become a part of Vietnam culture.

More than any other cultural areas, Thang Long - Hanoi is the focal exchange both spacious and closed with all other cultural regions in the country and the world.

One feature of the Thang Long-Hanoi culture is the exchange and convergence which make the culture in a certain extent can represent generally for the Vietnam culture. When receving the quintessence from other regions, the capital culture makes them integrated with each other according to the cultural pattern that has evolved over a long time in this ancient cultural region.

Thang Long - Hanoi has long been a place of "the convergence of 4 directions". We can immediately see that convergence when considering the situation of the capital's residents. As the position of the capital, Thang Long - Hanoi always has new residents from other places. Those are people who come here with the various tasks of the state. Not all of those who joined the residents of the capital are the quintessence of the 4 directions. However, most of them have to try a lot to firm on their feet and many people have created good careers.

Because of that special culture - history conditions, the cultural environment of Thang Long - Hanoi is not only a convergent place for talents but also the largest training place for talents in the country. Most of our country's celebrities when lived and worked in Thang Long, whether they were historical celebrities or cultural celebrities, all of them have become famous in national stature. We can not deny that Thang Long culture is the cradle nurturing and training talents, especially with the national cultural celebrities.

One of the most special features is versatility, skillfulness and artistic ability of talents in Thang Long. Thanks to living in the cultural essence convergence on four directions, the cultural forms that people exposure daily are completed and various much more than elsewhere. Therefore, talents in Thang Long are impressed by their versatility, skillfulness as well as sophistication. They are often the "versatile and skillful" people who we hardly meet in other locality.

Thus Thang Long – Hanoi is the foundation of fostering talents, fostering cultural values from people and cultural achievements converged on the four directions. It's so difficult that we mention all products and timeless values which have been created, gathered and converged in Thang Long through thousands of years. Associated with the spiritual values there are many outstanding faces of intellectual and creative ability of the people, who were born and grew in Thang Long as well as have many feelings with this locality, have contributed to create a lot of characteristics of Thang Long civilization to spread over the country. It's so difficult for us to mention all them, even if we just want to talk about some remarkable faces.

In Tran dynasty, Thanh Tri, Thang Long was the county in where Chu Van An was born. He spent almost his life to build school and educate people. Chu Van An was famous not only because of his profound knowledge and noble morality but also because he was a tough sage who didn't put temptation in fame and wealthy, didn't fear mighty. He submitted ‘sparse of seven slaying' to the emperor due to suggest him to kill seven treacherous courtiers.

In the 15^th century, Thang Long witnessed the birth of an outstanding man who reached the pinnacle of era's intelligence. He was Nguyen Trai - great patriot, genius strategist with both literary and martial ability, brilliant thinker and great culturist. Nguyen Trai was initially a great scholar with profound knowledge, absorbing Confucian creatively. Then he contributed great merits to build Vietnam civilization which has always appreciated humanity. His great brains absorbed almost contemporary knowledge. However, his life had many up and downs. He tasted both many glory and bitter. Finally, Le Chi Vien (Lizhi Park) unfairly sentence brought him the death which left many generations infinitely compassionate. For the descendants, Nguyen Trai is the brightest star of his era's pinnacle illuminating us today.

Le Quy Don who was considered that "there is only one person like this through hundreds years" was a great scholar in the 18^th century. His homeland was Dien Ha country, Hung Ha district, Thai Binh but he was born in Thang Long; he also studied, created his career and began studying about science in Thang Long. Le Quy Don left the descendants an excellent model of hard studying, queer researching and the will to reach the peak of human knowledge. He deserves an eminent scientist of Vietnam and an intellectual who represented Thang Long. Thanks to his conscious thoughts and great dedication, he left many valuable lessons on scientific methods as well as practice methods to understand thoroughly until the end of the problems.

The homeland of Nguyen Du was Ha Tinh, but he was born grew up and studied in Thang Long. Although Nguyen Du received the cultural quintessence of many rural areas - in father's homeland Ha Tinh, mother's homeland Kinh Bac, wife's homeland Thai Binh; the abundance of cultural activities in Thang Long, with the subtle, flexible, elegant, aesthetic voices of the heart of the country was a major factor which influenced on creating his ability and works.

 Modern time too, Dao Duy Anh Vu Khieu, Phan Huy Le, Ha Van Tan, Tran Quoc Vuong, etc were all talents coming from Thanh, Nghe An, Son Nam countryside, converging in Hanoi, then becoming famous scientists and professors.

Nguyen Dinh Thi is a talented person coming from Hanoi, he outlined Hanoi, in cultural space and historical time depth:

Those are Hồ Gươm, Hồng Hà, Hồ Tây. Those are sedimentation of mountain and river spirits in thousand years.

Appearance of Hanoi today is changing daily towards civilization and modernization. To celebrate Millennial Anniversary of Hanoi, we must try our best to preserve and promote the cultural values and beauty of the capital and the country.

Nguyen Van Can (Summarized)

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