Tan Thanh Border Gate

Not many people who come to Lạng Sơn know Tân Thanh, but those who have been there do not forget the special air of a real border market. Lạng Sơn is a mountainous province in the northeast of Vietnam.

The gate stands in Tân Thanh commune, in Văn Lãng. It is a secondary border gate, joined by road to the Chinese gate of Pò Chài. It is not a large international gate like Hữu Nghị. This one has a character of its own. It belongs to border trade, to the gate market, to trucks loaded with farm produce and to the daily life of the people of the border region.

Văn Lãng is a high border area, next to Bằng Tường in China. The province's own portal records that the best-known border market of this area is the Tân Thanh gate market. For people of Lạng Sơn, Tân Thanh is tied to memories of shopping, to everyday goods that came across the border, and to a rhythm of trade that follows the seasons and the harvests.

The gate zone covers about 78 hectares and is divided into two working areas. The first belongs to import and export. It holds bonded warehouses, a trade center, a fair and exhibition space, and the gate market. The second belongs to administration, parking, a market for farm and forest produce, and the homes of local people. Together the two areas serve businesses and residents, and they are also a place where visitors can stop.

In 2021, the provincial People's Committee approved a plan to develop trade and tourism at Tân Thanh. The direction was clear. Tân Thanh would become a multi-purpose economic complex, with import and export at its center. Logistics, a trade center, markets, food and sightseeing combined with shopping would be added to it. From here, a visitor sees more than a checkpoint on the border. It is a living web of economic life.

There is also a cultural layer. Near the gate stands Tân Thanh Pagoda, which the provincial People's Committee recognized in 2022 as a place for spiritual visits, under Decision 1418. The pagoda lies in the gate area itself, close to the border between Vietnam and China. Building began in 2015, in a Vietnamese style. A new pagoda in the middle of a border region is a reminder that the spiritual life of a border community never stands outside the hectic flow of trade.

Recently, the Lạng Sơn Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism has worked with the Chinese side, at Bằng Tường, to promote tourism cooperation. The route in question runs from Tân Thanh to Pò Chài. It shows that the future of Tân Thanh is not only trade. It points toward a border tourism space that runs in both directions.

Tân Thanh is not a sight in the usual sense. It is a living slice of border life. There is the sound of trucks with farm produce at dawn, the smell of market food at midday, and the pagoda bell drifting out from the direction of the gate. Trade and spirit, hurry and stillness, all lie side by side on a narrow strip of land beside the border line. People in Lạng Sơn say that a border is more than a line on a map.