2006年VOA标准英语-Hanoi Museum Remembers the Poor Old Days

By Matt Steinglass
Hanoi
13 July 2006

A Hanoi museum exhibit recalling the hardships of life under the communist command economy is proving a hit. Through this rare expose of life before Vietnam embraced the free market 20 years ago, Vietnamese are re-living the poor old days that they, or their parents, went through.

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Hanoi's Museum of Ethnology 
  
It is called "Thoi Bao Cap" (the "subsidized economy period") the years of poverty between 1975 and 1986, when a Soviet-style command economy reigned¹ throughout Vietnam.

The country was isolated², the planned economy stagnant³. Everything from rice to fabric⁴ was rationed⁵. A family might sacrifice everything for a prized possession like a sewing machine or a pig.

A recording⁶ of a pig is part of an installation recreating a middle-class Hanoi apartment of the early 1980s. Four generations of Dr. Pham Trang's family lived in the tiny apartment. The pigs lived in the bathroom.

The installation is part of a hit exhibit on the subsidized period at Hanoi's Museum of Ethnology. It draws 900 visitors a day, more than double the museum's normal numbers.

Display cases are filled with souvenirs of the hard years. One glass case holds a rock with the name "Mai Hai" and the number 127 painted on it. Museum curator Pham Van Duong explains.

Duong says the rock was the marker that Mr. Hai used to hold his place in line during the long wait for rice rations⁷.

Another section focuses on ordinary people's creativity in hard times. Curator Nguyen Thi Tuan Linh points to a display of handmade dolls, and a sweater knitted from nylon factory scraps⁸.

Linh says state salaries were too low to live on. People invented so-called "left-hand jobs" to survive, often selling homemade goods on the black market.

Video screens show average people recalling their struggles and aspirations⁹. One man interviewed said he remembers wanting an electric fan so much he used to see it in his dreams.

This kind of honest, open exhibit is unusual in Vietnam, where most museums replay state propaganda in static, un-changing displays.

The Museum of Ethnology is different. It was founded in 1995 to present Vietnam's traditional cultures, especially those of its many ethnic¹⁰ minorities. Professor Nguyen Van Huy is the museum's director.

Huy says the Ethnology Museum does not have to stick to minorities and tradition. It can mount exhibits on any aspect of contemporary life.

Huy has been steeped in ethnology since childhood. His father, who trained in France in the 1930s, was the founding figure of Vietnamese ethnology. Huy has also been influenced by collaborations with foreign museums, such as Paris's Museum of Man and the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C.

Huy still remembers an exhibit he saw at the Smithsonian. A railroad passenger car, with separate sections for whites and blacks, showed the stark¹¹ reality of the racial segregation¹² practiced in some U.S. states until the late 1960s.

The "subsidized period" exhibit in Vietnam takes a similarly frank approach. Most state versions of the recent past blame any hardships on the aftermath of war with the United States and the French. This exhibit blames the state-run economy, which it calls a "sluggish¹³ and inefficient¹⁴ production system" that "stifled¹⁵" people's creativity.

Starting in the late 1980's, Vietnam began liberalizing its economy, allowing private commerce. It also began opening up to the rest of the world, including its old enemy, the United States. The country, while still poor, now has the world's second fastest-growing economy after China. Today's Hanoi is a city of new houses, motorbikes and mobile phones, a far cry from the old days.

Nguyen Duc Khoi, 76, came to re-live his memories.

Khoi says he raised a pig in his tiny apartment too, cooking its food and taking out its manure¹⁶.

For university students Nguyen Thanh Tung and Tran Thi Ky Ha, that life is unthinkably remote. Tung says they learned about the exhibit online.

"I heard about this exhibition from my friend, a blogger," he said.

His friend Ha said her parents do not talk about the old days as much as they used to. What she found striking was the whole idea of a museum exhibit about something so recent and so real.

"Because in Vietnam, we often have exhibits for art, the war, and history. But something very close to life, we haven't had it yet and this is one of a kind," she said.

The exhibit ends with a bit of propaganda, congratulating the government for its free-market economic policies over the last 20 years. But that is not the main point. What has made the Ethnology Museum's show on the poor old days a hit are the voices of average people, telling today's blogging generation what it was like to raise a pig in your bathroom.

1 reigned   

vi.当政，统治（reign的过去式形式）

参考例句：

• Silence reigned in the hall. 全场肃静。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• Night was deep and dead silence reigned everywhere. 夜深人静，一片死寂。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

2 isolated   

adj.与世隔绝的

参考例句：

• His bad behaviour was just an isolated incident. 他的不良行为只是个别事件。
• Patients with the disease should be isolated. 这种病的患者应予以隔离。

3 stagnant   

adj.不流动的，停滞的，不景气的

参考例句：

• Due to low investment,industrial output has remained stagnant.由于投资少，工业生产一直停滞不前。
• Their national economy is stagnant.他们的国家经济停滞不前。

4 fabric   

n.织物，织品，布；构造，结构，组织

参考例句：

• The fabric will spot easily.这种织品很容易玷污。
• I don't like the pattern on the fabric.我不喜欢那块布料上的图案。

5 rationed   

限量供应，配给供应( ration的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• We were rationed to two eggs a day. 每天配给我们两个鸡蛋。
• The army is well rationed. 部队给养良好。

6 recording   

n.录音，记录

参考例句：

• How long will the recording of the song take?录下这首歌得花多少时间？
• I want to play you a recording of the rehearsal.我想给你放一下彩排的录像。

7 rations   

定量( ration的名词复数 )； 配给量； 正常量； 合理的量

参考例句：

• They are provisioned with seven days' rations. 他们得到了7天的给养。
• The soldiers complained that they were getting short rations. 士兵们抱怨他们得到的配给不够数。

8 scraps   

油渣

参考例句：

• Don't litter up the floor with scraps of paper. 不要在地板上乱扔纸屑。
• A patchwork quilt is a good way of using up scraps of material. 做杂拼花布棉被是利用零碎布料的好办法。

9 aspirations   

强烈的愿望( aspiration的名词复数 )； 志向； 发送气音； 发 h 音

参考例句：

• I didn't realize you had political aspirations. 我没有意识到你有政治上的抱负。
• The new treaty embodies the aspirations of most nonaligned countries. 新条约体现了大多数不结盟国家的愿望。

10 ethnic   

adj.人种的，种族的，异教徒的

参考例句：

• This music would sound more ethnic if you played it in steel drums.如果你用钢鼓演奏，这首乐曲将更具民族特色。
• The plan is likely only to aggravate ethnic frictions.这一方案很有可能只会加剧种族冲突。

11 stark   

adj.荒凉的；严酷的；完全的；adv.完全地

参考例句：

• The young man is faced with a stark choice.这位年轻人面临严峻的抉择。
• He gave a stark denial to the rumor.他对谣言加以完全的否认。

12 segregation   

n.隔离，种族隔离

参考例句：

• Many school boards found segregation a hot potato in the early 1960s.在60年代初，许多学校部门都觉得按水平分班是一个棘手的问题。
• They were tired to death of segregation and of being kicked around.他们十分厌恶种族隔离和总是被人踢来踢去。

13 sluggish   

adj.懒惰的，迟钝的，无精打采的

参考例句：

• This humid heat makes you feel rather sluggish.这种湿热的天气使人感到懒洋洋的。
• Circulation is much more sluggish in the feet than in the hands.脚部的循环比手部的循环缓慢得多。

14 inefficient   

adj.效率低的，无效的

参考例句：

• The inefficient operation cost the firm a lot of money.低效率的运作使该公司损失了许多钱。
• Their communication systems are inefficient in the extreme.他们的通讯系统效率非常差。

15 stifled   

（使）窒息， （使）窒闷( stifle的过去式和过去分词 )； 镇压，遏制； 堵

参考例句：

• The gas stifled them. 煤气使他们窒息。
• The rebellion was stifled. 叛乱被镇压了。

16 manure   

n.粪，肥，肥粒；vt.施肥

参考例句：

• The farmers were distributing manure over the field.农民们正在田间施肥。
• The farmers used manure to keep up the fertility of their land.农夫们用粪保持其土质的肥沃。