Museum of Ethnology

Recently we had friends who hopped over from Korea, where they teach English, to visit us here in Hanoi.  It was great having Nick & Jessica and their almost one year old daughter with us for a visit.  On their last day here we took them to see the museum of ethnology.  We highly recommend the museum as it has artifacts from multiple ethnic groups that live within the borders of Vietnam and even has actual reconstructed houses representing the diversity of housing from some of the different ethnic minoriites. As you can see by the pictures, the houses they have collected are very impressive. 

The houses tended to be the best representations and came from wealthy families that sold or donated them to the museum.  Within the houses are pictures of how they were moved and reconstructed.  Actually, there were workers living in the long house when we were at the museum.

Here is a picture of Ann, Brittany and our friend Jessica with her daughter in a different house (outside not pictured). 

They had a fire going on inside to illustrate where a family would cook and keep warm during the cooler months. 

Wish I knew more about this boat, but it was very long and intereseing.  We know there are boat races in the South and this is one of them.


The museum also has pictures of people representing the 54 different ethnic groups in Vietnam.  

You can go inside all the houses and get a feel of what it would be like for a family, or a community to use the housing at the time of year you visit.  As the day was cool, we could imagine the challenge of people staying warm and needing to have a fire going during the evening hours before getting wrapped up in blankets.  We have visited when it is quite a bit warmer, and the breeze through the very tall community house was certainly refreshing.