Quang Ninh Museum

The Quảng Ninh Museum rises from the ground like a heap of giant lumps of coal. The blocks are black, shiny and angular, and their roughness is deliberate.

The architect, Salvador Perez Arroyo, created a building unlike any other museum in Vietnam. He wanted it to say something before anyone reaches the gate. This is Quảng Ninh, and Quảng Ninh is coal.

Inside, though, the story is far more complicated.

The museum opened this building on October 13, 2013, on the 50th anniversary of the founding of the province. It was built on the foundation of an older museum, which began on September 2, 1960. Its first name was the History and Revolution Museum of the Hồng Quảng Zone. More than sixty years of the province's museum history now sit in a building that is entirely new.

In December 2021, the museum was ranked a first-class museum in the Vietnam museum system. That is the highest grade among public museums. It holds more than 30,000 objects and covers more than 10,000 square meters.

Outside, an open-air display holds a missile launch platform, anti-aircraft guns, old cannons, antique artillery and statues. The piece that cannot be missed is a block of anthracite coal.

The block weighs about 28 tons. It was found 176 meters below the ground, on April 5, 2012, in a coal mine at Cọc Sáu run by the Vinacomin group. On January 22, 2015, the Vietnam Records Organization certified it as the largest single block of anthracite in Vietnam.

Beside it, it is easy to see why the building was shaped like coal. Quảng Ninh did not only dig coal. It built its towns, its economy and the lives of millions of people on these mines.

The museum has three floors, and each tells a different part of the story.

The first floor begins with nature: geology, the sea, ecosystems, insects, animals and plants. It gives special attention to the traditional sea trades of the people of Quảng Ninh. These include squid angling, grouper angling and night fishing with lamps. They also include digging for sá sùng and raking ngán. Raking thiếp is another, and so is bổ hà. These sea trades are the culture and identity of the coastal people, and they have lasted for thousands of years.

The second floor follows history along a timeline. It starts with the Soi Nhụ culture, the Ha Long culture and the Metal Age. Then comes the era of Đại Việt, an old name for Vietnam. It includes the victory at Bạch Đằng in 1288 and the trading port of Vân Đồn.

One display is about the Trần dynasty and the Buddhism of Yên Tử. The dynasty ruled Vietnam from 1225 to 1400. The display tells the story of Emperor Trần Nhân Tông. He gave up the throne to climb Mount Yên Tử and found the Trúc Lâm school of Zen. It is a school of Buddhism wholly Vietnamese in origin, and its influence is still felt today.

The Cultural Heritage Department describes the space of the second floor as a giant boat hull. Its objects run from prehistory to the era of Đại Việt.

The third floor is modern Quảng Ninh. The history of the coal industry begins under French rule. The floor also covers the movement of the mine workers, open-pit and underground mining, and the tradition of Discipline and Solidarity among Vietnam's miners.

Next comes the culture of the ethnic groups of the province, shown in an open space with a cluster for each group. The floor ends with a special exhibit on Bác Hồ and the peoples of Quảng Ninh. Bác Hồ, or Uncle Hồ, is the name by which Hồ Chí Minh is widely known.

The building shaped like coal outside and the three floors inside make one complete story. Quảng Ninh is a land of coal, of the sea, of very long history and of many ethnic groups, and of people who turned all of this into a province with an identity of its own.

Before the glossy black building rising like a giant lump of coal, a whole land comes into view. There are the sea, the mountains and forests, the seams of coal deep underground, and the generations of people who lit up this place. All of it is still there.