VietNamNet Bridge – Museums in HCM City are hoping to lure rural youngsters away from dubious forms of entertainment like karaoke by taking exhibitions to their doorstep.

For instance, the Museum of Southern Vietnamese Women and the provincial museum in Ba Ria-Vung Tau showcased 120 photographs besides documents and artefacts related to Vietnamese women and their contributions.

It highlighted the deeds of women soldiers and heroines who lived and fought during the French and American wars. Several hundreds of people visited every day, many of them students.

Seeing exhibitions like that would help youngsters learn more about the country's history and older generations, especially great women and their contributions, Le Minh Hai, a second-year student at the Ba Ria-Vung Tau Community College, said.

"My friends and I saw many documents and images that gave information about national heroines like Nguyen Thi Dinh and Nguyen Thi Ut who sacrificed their lives for the country's independence," he added.

The War Remnants Museum staff last month travelled to Dong Son, a remote commune in the central province of Thua Thien-Hue's A Luoi District.

They took a collection of historical photos called Memories of War by veteran artist Chu Chi Thanh, one of the country's most renowned photojournalists.

It portrayed images of Vietnamese soldiers and people living in the period of between 1967 and 1973. It created a strong impact on many people, including school students, who to this day live in an area heavily polluted by Agent Orange, the lethal defoliant the US military sprayed to deforest the revolutionaries' hiding places.

"Our work touched the minds and hearts of A Luoi people," Dinh Ngoc Hang of the Museum said.

Her staff decided to gift all photos in a collection titled Memories of War to the Dong Son People's Committee, she said, adding, "We hope these objects do not just entertain but also educate local youths."

"Taking museums to the public, particularly in rural and remote areas, is our goal," Nguyen Thi Hoa Xinh, director of the Ho Chi Minh Museum's HCM City branch, said.

His museum has worked closely with schools and universities in the city and other provinces to organise mobile exhibitions of documentaries, images, artefacts and objects that have provided visitors knowledge of Viet Nam's history and people.

Its employees have toured around the region, visiting remote areas in Tra Vinh, Soc Trang, Ben Tre, Tien Giang, Vinh Long and Lam Dong.

"Our staff have organised special programmes to attract school and university students [so that they can] learn history through tangible objects instead of from books," she said.

"We will soon call on workers in HCM City's export processing zones and industrial parks," Xinh added.

VietNamNet/Viet Nam News