The Tho village has the most unique planning in the Western Nghe An region.

This land also has a tradition of learning, many people have been provincial and district leaders and even National Assembly delegates. That is Lung village… the place that Nghia Dan district has chosen to build a model ethnic minority village.

Lung Village taken from Googlemaps has a checkerboard layout.

VILLAGE"TAM LUNG" WHERE EVERYONE IS LIKE ONE HOME

In fact, Lung village is the common name for 3 hamlets of Nghia Loi commune, Nghia Dan district, including: Lung Thuong, Lung Binh and Lung Ha. Over many generations, the people of this land with 3 sides leaning against the mountain have always been proud of their homeland's traditions with many unique features that are rarely found anywhere else.

Mr. Le Hung Lam is a veteran currently living in Lung Ha hamlet. He worked for many years in Nghe An Provincial Party Committee, after retiring he chose to return to his birthplace. Loving the history of the village, he researched and collected documents and wrote "Narrative and Memoir" about Lung village. This is considered the history of the village. Through Mr. Lam, many interesting details about the village of Tho people hidden under the mountains on the border between Nghe An and Thanh Hoa were revealed. He said that in the past, his ancestors chose this land to make a living and build a career because it is located under the mountain ranges, where there are many valleys - called Lung in Muong language and flat plains, fertile land, many water veins, springs, and green streams flowing.

Mr. Le Hung Lam (middle) introduces the map of Lung village drawn more than half a century ago. Photo: Thanh Duy

Good land, birds flock, residents from many places came to settle, forming many ancient villages such as Chao village, Kim Giao village, but only Lung village is more crowded and developed to this day.

Although life has many ups and downs, the people of different clans living in Lung village, past and present, live together as one family, taking integrity as their way of life, taking deep affection and loyalty as their virtue for living, and taking humanity as their heart to survive and develop...

After the August Revolution, only a few people in the village knew how to read and write in the national language, but now the village is famous for its tradition of passing exams. Mr. Lam recalls: Lung village was once famous for its team of mature cadres working in the political and social fields, which no other village in Nghia Dan district has ever had. Many people from Lung village were members of the District Party Committee, District Party Secretary, Chairman of the People's Committee of Nghia Dan district, and up to 3 people were National Assembly delegates, including Mr. Hoang Cong Tuu (term III), Le Vu Phong (term IV) and Le Thanh Ky (term VIII). Perhaps until now, no ethnic minority village in the Western region of Nghe An has had this achievement.

Not to mention, Lung village is also a place that marks the steadfast friendship between Vietnam and Laos. According to Mr. Lam, in the past, the people of Lung village gave up their houses to let the Pathet Lao soldiers stay and station during the period of fighting against the Vang Pao bandits and were honored to welcome high-ranking officials from Laos to visit.

Sitting with Mr. Lam, not only the village history but also the village planning also contained many interesting surprises. Those were village maps from 1956 stained with time, clearly showing 3 hamlets: Thuong, Binh, Ha, arranged and planned in a checkerboard pattern.

Peaceful scenery of Lung Thuong hamlet, Nghia Loi commune, Nghia Dan district. Photo: Thanh Duy

As further proof, Mr. Le Trong Mung - Party Cell Secretary and Village Chief of Lung Thuong opened Google maps and pointed to the village's location. Those are the horizontal and vertical roads, forming square blocks. Each large block is 100m long and 60m wide, and in each large block there are small blocks 50m long and 30m wide. The ancients planned systematically, so the houses were arranged in each block very neatly, the roads were spacious, the axes were all 7-8m wide, which is really rare to find anywhere, whether in the highland hamlets or the lowland villages.

A COUNTRYSIDEMODEL

To promote the value of Lung village, in recent years, the Party Committee and People's Committee of Nghia Loi commune have focused on building Lung Thuong village into a model ethnic minority village. Along the roads, with the support of cement from the State, spacious concrete roads have been formed. On both sides of the road, people plant flowers to add to the peacefulness of the village. Not to mention, from the gate of Lung Thuong village, about 1km in, people have joined hands to pull electricity to light up the road with a total length of nearly 1km. Notably, Party Secretary Le Trong said that Lung Thuong has maintained the title of Cultural Village since 2007 until now.

Cultural house of Lung Thuong hamlet, Nghia Loi commune, Nghia Dan district. Photo: Thanh Duy

Recently, implementing the policy of merging hamlets and villages, Lung Thuong and Lung Ha hamlets were merged and selected by Nghia Dan district to build a model hamlet for the entire district. Mr. Nguyen Viet Thang - Chairman of Nghia Loi Commune People's Committee said that after the merger, the commune focused on guiding people to eliminate mixed gardens, convert to crops with high economic value, and at the same time mobilized people to join hands to gradually eliminate dirt roads; donated to support the elimination of the remaining 9 temporary houses.

In particular, the cultural aspect continues to be preserved and spread to a higher level, first of all, building a new village convention to suit the cultural lifestyle of households in the two hamlets after the merger, maintaining the activities of established cultural clubs and establishing new clubs to express and preserve the cultural features and identity of the people.

Sharing about the construction of a model ethnic minority hamlet in Lung village, Mr. Phan Van Binh - Vice Chairman of Nghia Dan District People's Committee said that this policy has been discussed and agreed upon by the district leaders. The basic content is based on the Criteria for building a model new rural residential area in Nghe An province. The district will focus resources to build Lung village into a model countryside, spreading the movement of building new rural areas, especially in hamlets and villages.