HaMoNee: First in-person meetings since project launch take place in Vietnam

While they emphasised the central importance and value of actual travel and experience abroad, the project partners were also in favour of continuing the virtual and hybrid formats developed over the last few semesters. This will allow students who are not able to complete a longer stay abroad for personal or work-related reasons to experience the partner universities' teaching offers, including new tools, and thus expand and enrich their own studies. Guest instructors can also be incorporated into online formats more flexibly – for example, the online guest lectures held by Prof. Dr. Dirk Engel this semester as part of a course at HUST.

Digitally supported collaborative research and study projects as well as digital formats for preparing for and wrapping up stays are also under development or have been partially implemented. These are not just subject-related, but also include intercultural and linguistic offers. For example, the Vietnamese courses for HAW Hamburg students, which have met with great interest from across the university and will be continued as a result. The project team also recently hired a tour guide in Hanoi who led HAW Hamburg students through the old quarter of the city via livestream as part of the university's International Days event. This not only gave the students an impression of everyday life in the historical trade, market and residential neigbourhood and of the architecture of the famed 'tube houses', but also conveyed interesting information about traditional values, people's lives and the current challenges facing the neighbourhood and its residents.

Hanoi's old quarter has undergone numerous changes during its more than 1,000-year history, whether through French colonial rule, wars and the socialist planned economy or through the free-market dynamics and transformation processes since the so-called 'renovation' (Dổi Mới). Today it is famous primarily because of its unique charm, its lively flair and its cultural value. Yet it also faces significant challenges due to the deterioration of buildings, uncontrolled demolitions and new building projects, and socio-economic changes.

While the central focus in the old quarter is on cultural preservation, in other parts of the city the main emphasis is on growth, modernisation and technological progress. New residential areas, metro lines, the electrification of the public transport system and, above all, improved connectivity through the 5G network, which will be commercialised this year, are only some of the numerous measures and goals. A lot has also happened in terms of city planning in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam's southern city, as demonstrated by the development of the Quận 2 neighbourhood and the Thu Thiem 2 bridge, which was completed at the beginning of this year.