Ancient cultural identities remain

For local residents in Le Mat Village, Gia Lam District, Hanoi as well as visitors, it is of great fortune to retain the communal house, named Ha – a beautiful ancient space of the village now facing threats from urbanisation projects in the area.
However, they are worried about local cultural identities when seeing the appearance of more high buildings in the village.
Unlike many practices of other places in the Northern region, Le Mat villagers from ancient times have not shown discrimination against new-comers. According to ancient stories, Le Mat has been considered a promising land for people from other localities. Many of them become richer than local residents when they came and settled here.
One of the stories tells that a woman in the village and her husband had to come back to the village after facing a lot of difficulties living in another land. Then, they became rich soon.
Le Mat village is famous for the snake-breeding industry; however, this industry was introduced and developed by a man who married into the area from other place, according to an elder who is taking care of the village’s communal house.
At present, much of the land is located in the Viet Hung Town, and the village is only famous for its communal house and snake-breeding.
The communal house was built on the foundation of the Le Mat Pagoda with the architecture of the post-Le dynasty. The site includes a communal house, Le Mat agoda, Cong Chua (Princess – daughter of King Ly Thanh Tong) Temple, which is now covered by a big tree.