Vietnamese Womens Museum, an interesting touristy destination in Hanoi

Different from the monotonous and boring feeling brought by some museums in Vietnam, the Vietnamese Women’s Museum is currently considered as a rarely interesting museum that attracts many local and international visitors. In 2017, the Vietnamese Women’s Museum continues to stay on the top 1% of hotels, restaurants and tourist attractions by TripAdvisor. This is the 5th time in a row that Vietnamese Women’s Museum are honoured to be on the top 25 most attractive museums in Asia (ranked the 10th out of 25 Asian museums in 2017). According to reviews on TripAdvisor, this year, visitors keep voting and give the high ranking for this museum due to its excellence in service quality beside the interesting and rich information that it provides through the exhibition system.

Located near the Sword Lake, the Vietnamese Women’s Museum is under the management of Vietnam Women’s Union. Established since 1987 and opened to the public since 1995, this is where the tangible and intangible heritages with historical values relate to Vietnamese women are conserved. This is also the centre of culture exchange activities between Vietnamese and international women for the development in equality and peace.

Diversity and continuous change

Since its launch in 1995, the Vietnamese Women’s Museum has organised many exhibitions and served hundred thousand of local and international visitors each year. The visitor per day during peak season may reach up to nearly 1000 visits. With the scale of about 2,500 m2 (including yard and garden), the Vietnamese Women’s Museum has been classified as a small size museum. However, its achievements and influences to public in general and museum sector specifically are considerable. The museum consists of 4 floors with a total area of 1500 m2 for exhibition and conserving 25,000 documents, objects classified basing on different materials such as textile, irons and wood. Each item has its own story relating to a specific historical period.  

Visiting the Vietnamese Women’s Museum, you will have the opportunities to explore and understand more about different angles in the lives of Vietnamese women as well as the diversity of women among different ethnic groups via frequent themes displayed: women in the family, women in the history and female fashion.
Stepping in the hall, you will see a status of a woman carrying her baby on the shoulder. This statue is the symbol of the love and protection that a mother can have for her child. The second floor is the exhibition of the theme: “Women in the family” including items related to the daily life of women such as: jewellery, working tools. From these objects, visitors can form an overview of the Vietnamese women’s quotidian life. There are 2 main social models in Vietnam: patrilineality and matrilineality. Visitors can also get to know generally the lifecycle of a Vietnamese woman from being a girl till getting matured and married. In addition, the museum also provides illustration and information on the customs of marriage, pregnacy and giving birth as well as activities of commerce, agricultural cultivation, weaving and educating children.

The theme “Women in the history” in the 3rd floor includes documents and items of Vietnam Women’s Union during 80 years of operation. Visitors will find out the important role of Vietnamese women, their contribution and scarification during several wars of the nation. Some typical cases of contemporary Vietnamese women are also introduced to local and international visitors.

Up on the fourth floor is the theme of “Female fashion”, in which traditional and regional outfits representing 54 ethnic groups of Vietnam are displayed. Visitors can know more about the art of creating beautiful patterns on clothes of ethnic people and the art of beauty of women in different regions through their usages of jewellery and making up.

Besides the frequent exhibitions, the museum also has multimedia exhibitions to show visitor events online or mobile exhibitions in provinces and thematic display to target different audiences. These specific topic exhibitions reflect the change and development of Vietnamese society such as: the history of ao dai – the traditional dress of Vietnam, the belief in Mother Goddesses, children during wars… The Vietnamese Women’s Museum does not only attract visitor because of its content quality but also due to the good services and the willingness to operate with innovation.       

The audio guide has recently been installed completely and started to put into operation. This new feature aims to generate sustainable services and improve the level of visitors’ satisfaction. The audio guide will be implemented in 3 languages: Vietnamese, English and French, bringing a lot of interesting information on culture and history of Vietnam – a country with multiple ethnic groups and thousands year of civilisation. 
After vising the Museum, you can walk around the Sword lake to enjoy the fresh air or continue the visit on ancient streets by electric cars or cyclo.