Vietnam currently has two Khmer ethnic cultural museums in Soc Trang and Tra Vinh. The Khmer ethnic cultural museum in Tra Vinh built in 1995 is located in Ang pagoda and Ba Om Pond.
The museum is home to many artifacts and documents featuring the culture, materials, and spiritual life of over 1.5 million Khmer people in the Mekong Delta.
The museum has architecture mixed in harmony of tradition and modern including a ground floor and a story surrounded with many green trees.
The museum consists of four galleries with about 800 valuable items which collected or excavated in the locality and divided into four main categories including belief and religion of Khmer people, the daily life culture, the traditional crafts, and arts of Khmer people in Tra Vinh in particular and in Mekong Delta in general.
The first gallery displays the spiritual life of Khmer people including photos of Tra Vinh's 143 Khmer pagodas imprints of Buddhism and Brahmanism such as Linga Yoni, Mukhalinga, Lord Shiva, Vishunu, Buddha statues, and with some of them over 300 years old.
The second area displays the material life of Khmer people including eating, dressing style, accommodation, and the daily activities, etc. The displayed objects include the traditional farming tools, fishing tools and ceramic products such as water fans, harrows, etc in the agriculture.
The third area exhibits traditional villages of Khmer people such as mat weaving, wood sculpture, knitting, and other crafts with many photos, glass and canvas paintings, and labor tools.
Especially, the area displaying culture and art of Khmer community shows the cultural heritages of Khmer people such as Du-ke folk singing, Robam originated from royal dance, dance on the background music of the 5-tone ensemble, Khmer folk dance, etc.
PH (bienphong.com)
