The Politics on the Restoration of the ‘Inconvenient Heritage’: Focused on the Restoration Project of ‘the Guangdong Assembly Hall’ in the Ancient Quarter of Vietnam’s Capital City, Hanoi

This paper tries to analyze the cultural heritage of ethnic Chinese and overseas Chinese in Vietnam from the perspective of ‘inconvenient heritage,’ focusing on the restoration of ‘the Guangdong Assembly Hall’ located in the ancient quarter of Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam. Firstly, it traces the change in the perspectives and policies of cultural heritage as a resource appropriated for the state-building, nationalism, and the governmentality of the party-state through Vietnam's historical trajectory of cultural heritage management, preservation, and restoration. Secondly, it discusses the possibility of the concept of inconvenient heritage as an instrumental tool, and examines the ‘inconvenient’ historicity of Vietnamese ethnic Chinese, overseas Chinese and Hanoi as the capital city of Vietnam. In particular, it attempts to unravel how the complex history of the Chinese migration and the political vulnerabilities of ethnic Chinese and overseas Chinese unfold the horizon of interpretation of cultural intimacy formed through mutual exchange between Vietnamese and Chinese people. Finally, it tries to analyze the restoration project of the Guangdong Assembly Hall in the ancient quarter of Hanoi in terms of historicity and politics of memory. As a conclusion, this paper suggests that the politics of memory on contemporary cultural heritage such as cultural heritage of a specific population, especially an ethnic minority and immigrant group, is eventually in line with how to secure a horizon of mutual understanding of inherent “inconvenience.”