The Ho Chi Minh City Fine Arts Museum, maybe a fifteen minute walk from Ben Thanh Market, has never had more than six to eight other visitors any time I have been there. The place is a quick visit, and, to be honest, the draw is as much the building as it is the politically-motivated art within it. The first time I went, I walked out thinking that I had seen exactly what I might have expected to see had I thought about it. Representations of an ancient golden age. Of struggle. And more struggle. (The Chinese occupied Vietnam for a thousand years, the Japanese for a few after World War II, the French for a hundred, and the Americans....well, depending on how you count, maybe between ten to twenty years.)
But part of the beauty of Ho Chi Minh City--despite its not being known for its architecture the way parts of Hanoi are, for instance--is its rapidly vanishing urban-renewed architecture. Progress sometimes means more destruction than what some of us would like to see. Why go to Ho Chi Minh City if it looks like everyplace else? Perhaps the locals-in-power do not fully comprehend the beauty of what their city already possesses. (And to the Fine Arts Museum's credit, it was designed with windows and more windows, even if the air is notably hot.)
And to the locals, it makes complete sense that there is a fence and a gate around the museum, even if it can be easily climbed (or so I imagine). Schools, playgrounds, museums, other enterprises: there is also almost always a guard at the gate, and if it is not a museum, you are supposed to be a "member" if you want to get in...for whatever reason.
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