Yasushi Ogura is a Japanese national who has worked alongside residents of L\u00f4 L\u00f4 Ch\u1ea3i village in northern Vietnam to preserve old earthen-walled houses while improving the quality of life there. According to local reporting from March 2026, he was 69 years old at the time. Over roughly 30 years since his first visit to Vietnam, he has built relationships with the community, speaks Vietnamese he taught himself, and calls H\u00e0 Giang a second home. The village is located in what was formerly H\u00e0 Giang Province, now part of Tuy\u00ean Quang Province. What is noteworthy is not only the scale of the funding involved, but the way he connected the reason for keeping the houses to the work of tourism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a 2023 interview with Heritage magazine, Ogura said he first visited Vietnam in 1995 and extended his travels to the northwest in 1999. As he continued to travel, his interest deepened in the cultures of ethnic minority groups and the old buildings found in mountain areas. His first visit to Vietnam and the period when he began working in L\u00f4 L\u00f4 Ch\u1ea3i village should be understood as separate points in time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A VnExpress article dated March 23, 2026 reports that he visited L\u00f4 L\u00f4 Ch\u1ea3i village in 2010 and witnessed earthen-walled houses being replaced by concrete construction. L\u00f4 L\u00f4 Ch\u1ea3i is written as L\u00f4 L\u00f4 Ch\u1ea3i and is a different village from L\u0169ng C\u1ea9m in the S\u1ee7ng L\u00e0 valley. What he sought to preserve was not just an attractive exterior, butthe traditional earthen-walled houses and the way of life continuing within them<\/strong>. Residents also have their own reasons for wanting more comfortable living conditions. The question of preserving old houses cannot be separated from how to address everyday inconveniences such as leaking roofs and sanitation facilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to VnExpress and D\u00e2n tr\u00ed reporting from March 2026, Ogura invested around 200 million Vietnamese dong and in 2014 opened a\"C\u1ef1c B\u1eafc Caf\u00e9 (C\u00e0 ph\u00ea C\u1ef1c B\u1eafc)\"<\/strong>using a traditional house. VnExpress describes the building as approximately 200 years old. Linking the funding to a practical use for the building led to the activities that followed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The core idea was to use the traditional house as a caf\u00e9 and generate income to sustain it. D\u00e2n tr\u00ed reports that while keeping the building intact, a toilet and a small counter were added, and operations were later handed over to the family. The key point when reading about this case is that rather than simply bringing in a business from outside and walking away, the approach was structured so that the residents themselves could continue to run it.<\/p>\n\n\n\nA caf\u00e9 funded with around 200 million VND, and a mechanism for keeping the houses<\/h2>\n\n\n\n