Amazing Museum of Folk Culture

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The city of Hoi An in the Quang Nam province of Vietnam is considered a living museum. The Old Town of Hoi An is popular for having preserved its ancient homes and other centuries-old structures such as the Quan Cong Temple, Japanese Covered Bridge and Hoi An Assembly Homes. It also has four pristine beaches, An Bang beach, Cua Dai Beach, My Khe 1 Beach (more popularly known as China Beach), and My Khe 2 Beach. Popular tourist destinations outside the city are the My Son Sanctuary, Marble Mountains and Cham Islands. Hoi An has four well furnished museums, and one of them is the Museum of Folk Culture, also known as Hoi An Folklore Museum.

Located on Nguyen Thai Hoc Street, the Museum of Folk Culture aims to showcase the daily lives of the humble Hoi An folk people, documenting the local culture and how it manifested in the lives of the locals through the years. A head-turner as one enters the museum are the bizarre-looking plaster sculptures of local Vietnamese farmers and tribes wearing their traditional clothes. Accurately documenting and portraying traditional garb as they were worn in the past is very important to this museum. This is the first museum in the whole of Vietnam to ever focus specifically on the subject of local culture and rural living.

There are over 600 artifacts in this unique museum and about 90% of these are original, and therefore deserving extra care. Only about 500 artifacts are on display for special protective reasons. The displays are displayed according to the following categories: folklore, traditional clothing, traditional occupation, folklore games, and so on. The most noticeable relics are ancient tools and clothes. All the 500 objects on display are original and over 100 years old. This only shows the richness of the province’s history. Not many major museums can boast of such inventory. These relics are like jigsaw puzzles scattered over a canvass of elapsed time that when put together draws a beautiful picture of authentic Vietnamese culture. The museum aims to highlight Vietnamese family customs, Chinese family customs, and traditional performance arts such as songs and dances.

As part of the Relic Preservation Center inside Hoi An’s Old Town, entrance to the museum is free as one buys entrance ticket into the Old Town. This is called the coupon entry system. With just one ticket worth US$5 or 10,300 dong, a tourist is free to enter and enjoy five different attractions or facilities within the Old Town. Normally, tourists would choose only one of the four museums inside the town, and typically it is the Hoi An Museum of History and Culture that gets pick first. On their next visits, tourists get to choose between the Museum of Sa Huynh Culture, Museum of Trade Ceramics and this museum.

With so many ancient artifacts and relics, the Old Town of Hoi An, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is the perfect home for the Museum of Folk Culture. There 18 attractions to see inside the town, and some of them are the Guan Yin Temple, Phung Hung House, and the Tran family home and chapel, to name a few. There are also art galleries, restaurants and cafes, souvenir shop and a number of tailor shops.