In Bangkok, when a motorcycle driver stops you on the street and pulls a card out of his pocket, it is usually of naked women enticing you to come to a massage parlour. In Hanoi, when the same thing happens (which is does incessantly) the driver pulls out a card with a list of museums he wants to take you to.
The Vietnamese have done a wonderful job depicting the heroic nature of communism and cycle of continual struggle .As I was standing outside the Vietnam Army museum, appropriately located at 28A Dien Bien Phu Street (the name of the1954 battle beating the French) and across the road from Lenin Park I realized how classic this symmetry was. All of the museums, and there are about twelve of them, show the classic symbols of this struggle. There is a guillotine in at least two museums, many pictures of Ho leading and educating the troops, lots of soldiers in impressive revolutionary poses, the bicycle driver with tons of weight ‘shlepping’ food and ammunition to the front and of course, downed American war machinery. Since the Americans used more firepower in Vietnam then they did during world war two, you can only imagine how much of it is left in museums all over Vietnam!
Schoolchildren, foreigners, and Vietnamese of all sizes and shapes file through these museums daily, reinforcing the notion of continual struggle. To be fair, there are always a few galleries at the end taking Hanoi up to the modern period with charts and graphs of production and economic growth depicted in true communist style.
But what I am left to wonder is what message is getting seared into the brain of schoolchildren. Is it that life is a struggle, the whole world is against us and we have to continue to sacrifice and fight to survive? If this is the case, is it the same message Jews share around the world as they continue to memorialize the Holocaust? Instead of promoting the great tradition of Jewish values, ethics and morality, we tend to promote the horrific negative experience of the twentieth century. Instead of teaching our children to be proud of our rich heritage are we promoting weariness and fear? Are the Vietnamese doing the same thing? There is the Air Force museum, Ho Chi Minh museum, army museum, revolutionary museum, to be fair, mixed in with a geography, ethnography, fine arts and woman museum. Clearly it is not for me to say, but I am certainly left wondering what these messages are essentially doing to the culture of the Vietnamese.
Obviously, Vietnam has a rich and powerful history of scholarship if the writings and pictures represent scholarship as I presume they do. There is centuries of art, universities, and commerce. Clearly there are other important stories to tell other than war. Having said that, seeing powerful howitzers, mangled planes and tanks is quite an awesome experience for someone from Canada. There is probably more war machinery in Vietnamese museums than in all of Canada.
As you can see from the photos( which I cannot upload to this blog) the French colonial influence is quite dramatic in the architecture of the buildings. The French had good taste with their high ceilings, beautifully large arched windows, expansive gardens and contoured buildings. They make for wonderful places to house museums. All of the museums, except for the Ho Chi Minh Museum, are quite laid back and relaxed. In the very modern Ho buiding, built in a lotus shape, you have all of the multi media in many languages talking about the evils of fascism and the wonderful glory of communism and you are directed with arrows, guards and clearly marked hallways making sure you keep moving but see the right things.
Two more museums to go, perhaps tomorrow, as I wait for the Bangkok airport to reopen. The woman’s museum and Fine Art museum. Hopefully I will leave tomorrow and see these on my next trip. After all, I have to have something to look forward to!
The Vietnamese have done a wonderful job depicting the heroic nature of communism and cycle of continual struggle .As I was standing outside the Vietnam Army museum, appropriately located at 28A Dien Bien Phu Street (the name of the1954 battle beating the French) and across the road from Lenin Park I realized how classic this symmetry was. All of the museums, and there are about twelve of them, show the classic symbols of this struggle. There is a guillotine in at least two museums, many pictures of Ho leading and educating the troops, lots of soldiers in impressive revolutionary poses, the bicycle driver with tons of weight ‘shlepping’ food and ammunition to the front and of course, downed American war machinery. Since the Americans used more firepower in Vietnam then they did during world war two, you can only imagine how much of it is left in museums all over Vietnam!
Schoolchildren, foreigners, and Vietnamese of all sizes and shapes file through these museums daily, reinforcing the notion of continual struggle. To be fair, there are always a few galleries at the end taking Hanoi up to the modern period with charts and graphs of production and economic growth depicted in true communist style.
But what I am left to wonder is what message is getting seared into the brain of schoolchildren. Is it that life is a struggle, the whole world is against us and we have to continue to sacrifice and fight to survive? If this is the case, is it the same message Jews share around the world as they continue to memorialize the Holocaust? Instead of promoting the great tradition of Jewish values, ethics and morality, we tend to promote the horrific negative experience of the twentieth century. Instead of teaching our children to be proud of our rich heritage are we promoting weariness and fear? Are the Vietnamese doing the same thing? There is the Air Force museum, Ho Chi Minh museum, army museum, revolutionary museum, to be fair, mixed in with a geography, ethnography, fine arts and woman museum. Clearly it is not for me to say, but I am certainly left wondering what these messages are essentially doing to the culture of the Vietnamese.Obviously, Vietnam has a rich and powerful history of scholarship if the writings and pictures represent scholarship as I presume they do. There is centuries of art, universities, and commerce. Clearly there are other important stories to tell other than war. Having said that, seeing powerful howitzers, mangled planes and tanks is quite an awesome experience for someone from Canada. There is probably more war machinery in Vietnamese museums than in all of Canada.
As you can see from the photos( which I cannot upload to this blog) the French colonial influence is quite dramatic in the architecture of the buildings. The French had good taste with their high ceilings, beautifully large arched windows, expansive gardens and contoured buildings. They make for wonderful places to house museums. All of the museums, except for the Ho Chi Minh Museum, are quite laid back and relaxed. In the very modern Ho buiding, built in a lotus shape, you have all of the multi media in many languages talking about the evils of fascism and the wonderful glory of communism and you are directed with arrows, guards and clearly marked hallways making sure you keep moving but see the right things.
Two more museums to go, perhaps tomorrow, as I wait for the Bangkok airport to reopen. The woman’s museum and Fine Art museum. Hopefully I will leave tomorrow and see these on my next trip. After all, I have to have something to look forward to!
No comments:
Post a Comment