(HBO) – Bui Thanh Binh, Director of the Muong Cultural Heritage Museum in Thai Binh ward of Hoa Binh city (Hoa Binh province), has been spending decades helping preserve the Muong ethnic group’s culture.
Bui Thanh Binh introducing tools displayed at the Muong Cultural Heritage
Museum in Thai Binh ward of Hoa Binh city to visitors.
Binh said when working as a tour guide at the
Hoa Binh travel company in 1985, he realised that foreign tourists preferred
visiting mountainous and remote areas to explore ethnic groups’ culture. Born
in the Muong Dong area – one of the cradles of the Muong culture, he has
nurtured a desire to help uphold the cultural heritage of the Muong people
since their culture not only is diverse but also boasts high artistic value.
In 1985 - the first year of his efforts, Binh
spent his modest salary collecting household utensils such as a basin, a frying
pan, and several bronze food trays from rural residents. From 1988 to 1998, he
collected a number of ceramic and bronze items, rice milling utensils, and
belongings of shamans. About 5,000 - 6,000 unique objects reflecting the life
of Muong people have come to his possession so far.
Introducing the Muong Cultural Heritage Museum,
Binh showed visitors six stilt houses deeply imbued with Muong people’s
cultural identity. The houses are located on a hill covering about 4,000 square
metres.
Among them, a stilt house of a Muong herbalist
contains many precious objects like an altar, a set of items used in betel
chewing, jewellery, hunting and foraging tools, bone and horn handicrafts,
swords, and seals. Meanwhile, the farmer house boasts such items as rice
milling utensils, wine jars, a wooden weaving loom, and men and women’s
outfits, helping visits gain an insight into the life of Muong people.
At a stilt house showing the ethnic group’s
cuisine, Binh said wild vegetable, five-colour steamed sticky rice, grilled and
steamed fish, and roasted pork are among the dishes winning tourists’ hearts.
Over the last more than 10 years, the Muong
Cultural Heritage Museum has welcomed thousands of tourists from across Vietnam
and other countries.
Apart from searching for and collecting
antiquities of the Muong culture, Binh has also invested efforts in maintaining
and popularising the group’s folk songs, especially gong pieces – a
long-standing part of the Muong people’s life.
The artisan has taught the Muong gong playing
skills and folk music to learners from various localities, from Hoa Binh,
Hanoi, Phu Tho, Thanh Hoa in the north to Lam Dong and Dak Lak provinces in the
Central Highlands. He is also the head of the Muong village’s artisan group at
the Vietnam National Village for Ethnic Culture and Tourism in Hanoi’s Son Tay
town./.
With an increasingly vibrant and widespread emulation movement aimed at building cultured residential areas and cultured families, Yen Thuy District has been making steady progress toward improving both the material and spiritual well-being of its people, while fostering a civilized, prosperous, beautiful, and progressive community.
Once lacking recreational spaces and community facilities, Residential Group 2 in Quynh Lam Ward (Hoa Binh City) has recently received attention for the construction of a new, spacious, and fully equipped cultural house. The project followed the model of state support combined with public contributions in both labor and funding.
The "All people unite to build cultural life" movement, which has been effectively integrated with Kim Boi district’s socio-economic development goals, is fostering a lively spirit of emulation across local residential areas, hamlets, villages, public agencies, and enterprises. In addition, through the initiative, traditional cultural values are being preserved and promoted, while community solidarity and mutual support in poverty reduction and economic development are being strengthened.
A working delegation of the Hoa Binh provincial People’s Committee led by its Permanent Vice Chairman Nguyen Van Toan on June 11 inspected the progress of a project to build the Mo Muong Cultural Heritage Conservation Space linked to tourism services in Hop Phong commune, Cao Phong district.
Born and growing in the heroic land of Muong Dong, Dinh Thi Kieu Dung, a resident in Bo town of Kim Boi district, in her childhood was nurtured by the sweet lullabies of her grandmother and mother. These melodies deeply imprinted on her soul, becoming an inseparable part of her love for her ethnic group's culture. For over 20 years, this love for her hometown has driven Dung to research, collect, and pass down the cultural values of the Muong people to future generations.
In the final days of May, the Ethnic Art Troupe of Hoa Binh Province organized performances to serve the people in remote, mountainous, and particularly disadvantaged areas within the province. These were not just ordinary artistic shows, but they were the meaningful journeys aimed at spreading cultural values, enhancing the spiritual life of the people and contributing to the preservation of ethnic minority cultural identities.
