An Extra Training with Hanoi Free Walking Tours at Vietnamese Women’s Museum

On November 3rd, 2012, Hanoi Free Walking Tours’ Training Department organized a training event for members of Hanoi Free Walking Tours in Vietnamese Women’s Museum – an increasingly important site for our tours. Arriving at 8 am, we were really eager to know about this site, especially the newbies, they arrived soon, all prepared to take notes and some even brought records and cameras! We had a small chit-chat to warm up the atmosphere before really starting the training. It was also the time for the oldies to get acquainted with the newbies.

After that, we got inside the museum. The museum is a close partner of Hanoi Free Walking Tours so we were warmly welcomed and introduced around with the utmost friendliness. The site consists of 3 main parts: women in the family, women in history and women’s fashion. The first part: women in the family was about traditions and ceremonies related to weddings, taking care for the women when they gave birth, women’s role in agricultural works and the special tradition of worshipping the Mother Goddess.

If the first part gave us more knowledge about the women’s role in society, the second part made us all proud and touched about the heroic women during wartime.

At that time they were not just working, taking care of the family but also fighting bravely. Many women dedicated and sacrificed their youth and life for the peace of the country, and I admire their optimist attitude in hardships: “At night they lighted for us to fix the street, in the day-time they bombarded to kill the fish for us to have meal…” written by Ms. Vo Thi Tan on a letter to her mother, just a few days before she passed away in a bombing, and that was the thing that impressed me the most.

Another impressive image was the one about a human-piers bridge which was used to carry the wounded soldiers across the stream. And there were still tons of things to see and stories to listen about the heroic women that will certainly appeal to visitors to the museum.

The last part of the museum was dedicated to women’s traditional clothes of some ethnic groups, and the techniques to make them. It was interesting to know that some decorations were made of beeswax or a bracelet which link to the spirit of the owner. The top floor was a temporary exhibition about Singaporean culture. From here you can have an amazing view to the ground floor through the round window decorated with colorful conical hats.

At the end of the training time, we expressed our gratefulness to the Museum for their kind help to us in holding the event. Saying farewell to the museum’s staff, we gathered and had a friendly talk among the members to better understand each other and bridge the gap between different generations of the club. Mr. Duong Hong Anh, president of Hanoi Free Walking Tours, gave an inspired sharing about the early time when he joined the club and about some very devoting oldies. The small talk raised the spirit of not only newbies but also us oldies. It inspired us to make more contribution to the development of the club in the future.

For all the helpful and meaningful things that we’ve learned from this training, it was one of the most interesting events that I’ve ever attended since I joined the club. So I want to give a thank to the Training Department for organizing this event, special thanks to Vietnamese Women’s Museum for always giving Hanoi Free Walking Tours privileges and being our close partner. And thank you, the audience, for your continuous support to our club.

We promise that we’ll bring you more great articles in the near future. See you then!