Welcome to Hanoi's Vietnamese Women's Museum
While there are many great museums in Hanoi, I visited one of my absolute favorites this week. The Vietnamese Women's Museum is devoted entirely to the role of women in the country with permanent exhibitions of women's role in the family, in the history of Vietnam, and in fashion.
The first exhibition focuses on marriage and childbirth customs. Good thing I visited this just in time because I took notes on childbirth customs for daughter Allyse and marriage customs for soon-to-be daughter-in-law Erin. Let's start with customs for you, Allyse. The first is a ritual involving the blood of a sacrificed dog to be rubbed over your stomach to chase away evil. See, I bet you hadn't thought of that yet. Then one should make offerings of 3-5 jars of alcohol, one pig, one dog, four bracelets and a bowl of rice. Let's just focus on prayers for health. And for you, Erin, you should be giving me a gift of a milk bowl to recognize all of the nutrition I have provided for your future husband and gifts of bracelets to repay me for his education. While I am making light of these traditions, they were very interesting.
From marriage and family, the display went on to focus on traditional female tasks of cooking, farming, sewing, weaving, pottery and selling of wares. Many of these displays were accompanied by videos demonstrating women at work doing each of these tasks. The life of the street peddlers brought tears to my eyes. Women often shared a room with 8-10 other women and bought their goods at the market early in the morning in order to bring them into downtown Hanoi for sales. They would start their days at four or five and end when they were out of goods, often at eight or ten at night. Often these women were from the countryside but couldn't make enough farming with their husbands so they needed to come to the city to sell products. During planting or harvest, they would return to help on the farm. Often they spoke of the need to make money to pay their child's school fees.
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| The original backpack is great help in the fields! |
Which brings me a little off task to just say there is no free public education in Vietnam. Students must have a school uniform and parents must pay school fees. I understand that students are only required to attend school for five years. Here is an interesting article about the education in Vietnam.
On the second floor of the museum we encountered women in history. It was so interesting to me to see how women were, in fact, very active in Vietnamese history. After spending last week cringing at the reports at the Ho Chi Minh War Remnants Museum of American soldiers killing "innocent" women and children during the Vietnam War, I was suddenly face to face with young women celebrated as leaders in the Viet Cong and as spies. No wonder American soldier couldn't tell the difference between the innocent and the enemy.
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| This young lady began her political activities at the age of 9. She was arrested (shown here) at 17. |
This section of the museum also focuses on the contribution of women in politics, the arts, business and agriculture.
The third floor of the museum focuses on fashion and traditional signs of beauty. Most unique, to me, was the practice of lacquering teeth and the effect of beetle on one's teeth. Beetle and areca are essential offerings at weddings. Beetle leaf, lime, and a quarter of areca nut make up the chew that will give you these beautiful teeth. Lacquering teeth began in the 20th century. water was added to the resin of a burned tree to make it sticky. Then this paste was applied to clean teeth over night. This process was repeated two or three days later. Girls lacquered their teeth at the age of 12 or 13. Today only a few elderly women have lacquered teeth.
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| Betel |
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Lacquered teeth
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One of the highlights of the museum is the variety of clothing styles from each of the 54 ethnic groups.
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Children's clothing
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| bridal couple |
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| Baby hats designed to fool the evil spirits into thinking the children are flowers and will leave them alone. |
The fourth floor was dedicated to a special exhibit called The Worship of Mother Goddess.
Mother Goddess Worship This display consisted of many gorgeous costumes which are handmade for the various characters in the worship ceremony.
Don't overlook this museum if you get to Hanoi!
Don't overlook this museum if you get to Hanoi!
Their art is really unique and beautiful?
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