I love to visit Museum no matter which country I go. There are just too much national treasure to explore, be it a collection of fine arts, artefacts, weaponry, mummies or in this case here – sexually explicit wooden carvings. Unlike other museums that I have visited before, Vietnam Museum of Ethnology offers a very different experience. This Museum showcase life-size houses of different ethnic groups in Vietnam (there are 54 official ethnic groups in Vietnam). And one of the interesting structure is the tomb of Giarai (Jarai) people, an Arap subgroup of Gia Lai province. Asia has long been known with many peculiar funerals. But what so unique about Giarai’s tomb is those sexually revealing wooden figures that are encircling the tomb. With my photos below, I guess no further elaboration is needed. Together with other wooden figures like pregnant women, children and animal, they symbolize fertility and serve to accompany the dead into the afterlife.
For more information of this Museum, you can visit – http://www.vme.org.vn/index.asp. It’s quite a distance away from the city centre. I took a local bus (No. 14) from Hoan Kiem Lake to reach the Museum.
咁都得? 那你覺得他們要表達甚麼?
haha, don’t be surprised. Death and Life is a cycle, those wooden carvings are meant for fertility, for new birth in the family. Penis has always been worshiped in many countries in Asia such as Bhutan, Thailand, Korea, Japan and many more.
Yups2… Penis represent fertility… Especially on the ancient time, where people depends on the land to make a living…
lol, these are sexually explicit wood carvings
Indeed!
Hi
We’re visitng Hanoi next March and would like to visit the Museum of ethnology. How long is the bus no 14 journey approximately ?? Thanks Gillian
It will probably takes about 35 to 50 mins. March? Still a long way to go man!
very interesting and excellent pictures taken
Should have taken time off to check these out when I was in Hanoi 
there’s always next time. The fine art museum is worth to visit as well.