VN Displays Southeast Asian Culture

HA NOI — The Viet Nam Ethnology Museum is preparing to launch a collection of cultural items from Southeast Asian and East Asian nations.

The exhibition building, designed in the shape of a kite, will have a preservation system and preservation storage space so as to enable the museum to exhibit a large number of items on different topics .

Construction will start at the end of the year and be complete by 2005.

In the near future, the museum will co-operate with partners from regional countries to have them display their collection in the museum.

According to the museum’s director Nguyen Van Huy, it would take Viet Nam 20 years to establish a selective and comprehensive collection of its own.

A Japanese professor, who has number of collections from various cultures all over the world, has promised to present the museum with a collection of roughly 300 items from Southeast Asian nations. It will be the first displayed on the inauguration day of the Southeast Asian building. —VNS