14/09/2010 | Vietnamnet Bridge
As sites to preserve history and cultural values, many museums in Vietnam do not have proper levels of investment and cannot fulfill their function.
Hanoi Museum
Established in 1982, the museum has no space for the treasures accumulated in Hanoi’s 1000 year history.
Nobody is sure how many antiques this museum owns. Since it was established, Hanoi Museum receives all items from excavations in Hanoi. From the weapons warehouse of the Le Dynasty unearthed from the Ngoc Khanh Lake some 30 years ago, to items collected from Co Loa ancient citadel in Dong Anh district in May 2010, everything goes to this museum.
Except few people know where it is. People only know about these items when they were discovered and even historians don’t have another chance to see them. These antiques are not displayed because the museum doesn’t have its own space yet. The museum is temporarily based at 5 Ham Long.
The museum refuses to allow anybody to have access to its antiques, which are “consigned” at many temporary warehouses throughout Hanoi, including the old warehouse of Ha Tay Museum, the warehouse of the Vietnam History Museum, a warehouse in Dong Thay relic site in Thanh Xuan district and a warehouse at Hung Ky pagoda.
The senior monk of Hung Ky pagoda said a large part of the pagoda has been used as a warehouse of the Hanoi Museum for nearly 40 years. The pagoda has several times asked the Hanoi authorities to give back this area. The city promised to remove all antiques before April 30, 2010 but they seem to have forgotten.
A large number of antiques are “living” in aluminum boxes at the warehouse of the Vietnam History Museum for decades. “The History Museum has asked us to remove the items for years. We don’t know how to deal with it!” exclaimed Hanoi Museum Director Nguyen Van Hung.
At one warehouse, the antiques are covered only in plastic and put into plastic baskets, which are piled on each other. Some antiques are in jute bags. The warehouse roof is a torn canvas piece. Sitting outside the back of this warehouse are dozens of statues and stone steles, which have there for years.
A guard of Dong Thay relic showed reporters the hills covered by canvas, saying that these are antiques of the Hanoi Museum, which have been there for many years.
Hung admitted that he didn’t know when the museum would have a new house. He said that question must be directed to the Hanoi Department of Construction and the Hanoi Museum Project Management.
In the latest report about construction to celebrate Hanoi’s 1000th anniversary, Hanoi Museum is listed among the works that “must be completed before October 1.” However, the report admits that, at the current pace, by October 1 the Hanoi Museum will only be “basically completed."
Hue Museum
Hue Museum director Huynh Dinh Ket in a 40sq.m room, which is both the office and warehouse where antiques are preserved (photo: Tuoi Tre)
This museum is in a similar situation. It was established over 20 years ago, but it still has no headquarters.
Researcher Nguyen Huu Thong, who is the director of the Vietnam Institute for Culture and Arts, Hue branch, remarked frankly: “This museum doesn’t exist in reality, only in name! Hue people don’t know what it is.”
Le Van Thuyen, chief editor of Hue Past and Present magazine, observed: “Nobody would believe that Hue doesn’t have a museum, but actually, Hue doesn’t have one at present. There is one museum on paper, but it doesn’t actually exist.”
Thuyen, who is the former director of Hue Museum, recalled: “After 1975, there was a council promoting the establishment of Hue museum. At first, they wanted to have a cultural history museum, but then they decided to set up a folk culture museum.”
“I don’t understand why Hue invests too little in culture. How can it become the city of festivals, the city of culture when it has none of the three basic foundations of culture: a museum, a theatre and places for presentations?” Thuyen wondered.
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