Dak Lak Museum

A set of gongs lies silent in a glass case. No one is playing it, yet it is still telling the story of a whole land.

We are standing in front of the Đắk Lắk Museum, in Buôn Ma Thuột. Display is only part of its work. It is also a place for research, for collecting and for keeping. It is where we come to understand this land before we truly set foot in it.

Before going in, take one look at the building. Work on it began in 2008, and it opened on November 21, 2011. Its design draws on the Ê Đê longhouse, but it is built of concrete, glass and metal alloys, in a modern palette of colors. It does not copy the original longhouse. Yet its long, reaching form, the rhythm of its structure and its sense of belonging to this place are real. The building joins a modern style with the traditions of the peoples of the Central Highlands.

The museum's story began long before the present building. On September 2, 1977, the province founded the Đắk Lắk House of Tradition. Its first home was at 1 Lê Duẩn Street, with about 500 artifacts. In 1990 it was renamed the General Museum of Đắk Lắk Province, known simply as the Đắk Lắk Museum. In 1995 it was ranked a grade 2 museum. Then in 2014, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism ranked it a grade 1 museum. From a local house of tradition, it has grown into a keeper of many layers of memory of the Central Highlands.

Inside, the museum has three permanent exhibition spaces. The first is devoted to the cultures of its peoples. It covers more than 700 square meters and holds more than 450 artifacts, along with more than 100 photographs and a number of films. Walking through it, visitors meet gongs, jars, K'pan benches, dugout canoes, clothing and jewelry. There are bamboo instruments, along with basketry, ironwork, pottery, weaving and the tools of village life. But the real focus is not any single object. It is understanding each object within the community that made it.

One detail about the gongs matters most. A set of gongs in a glass case is easy to see as an instrument for a stage performance, and that is the wrong way to see it. UNESCO has inscribed the Space of Gong Culture in the Central Highlands as intangible cultural heritage. That space spreads across several provinces of the Central Highlands, Đắk Lắk among them. What was inscribed is not the gong itself but a whole space. It is the community, the rituals, the settings where the gongs are played, and the memory and social practice that together create it. This is the most important thing to keep in mind in front of a set of gongs in any museum.

The second space is devoted to history. It leads through prehistory and early history, through the modern era, and through the upheavals and the building of the land of Đắk Lắk. Standing here, we see Đắk Lắk told in many layers of time, one laid over another.

The third space is devoted to biodiversity. It links the story of culture with the story of nature. Forests, water, basalt soil, wild animals and plants all have their place here. To understand the Central Highlands apart from the forest, the water and the soil is to understand only part of it. This space reminds us of that.

The museum's exhibition area totals about 2,500 square meters, and the whole building covers more than 9,000 square meters. It is a large place. But what makes a visit count is the quality of attention we bring with us, not how many objects we pass.

One detail belongs to this museum alone. It was the first museum in Vietnam to use four languages in its displays. They are Vietnamese, French, English and Ê Đê. Ê Đê is the language of a large community native to this land. Setting it level with French and English in a display case is not decoration. It is how the museum defines itself. The aim is to present Đắk Lắk to the outside world, and also to let the people here see their own language honored.

The museum grounds lie within the heritage site of the Bảo Đại Palace, with trees on every side, like a forest in the heart of the city. Bảo Đại was the last emperor of Vietnam. Stepping out into the yard, under the old trees, we understand that the museum is not cut off from the land and sky of Buôn Ma Thuột. It grows out of that very landscape.

The Đắk Lắk Museum is not the last stop. It is the finest place to begin. Once we understand that a gong is more than an instrument, a longhouse more than architecture and a forest more than trees, we will see the villages and Lắk Lake quite differently. Buôn Đôn and Yok Đôn will look different too. We will no longer look at them as strangers who have come to see. We will look as people who carry a little of the Central Highlands inside, coming back to meet it again.