Vietnam ancient civilization’s sculptures in Paris exhibition
For the first time, a total of 96 sculptures of the central Vietnam’s Cham ancient civilization are on display at an exhibition launched Tuesday in Paris.
The exhibits were from two important Cham collections owned by Vietnamese and French museums.
This is the first time a precious collection of Cham sculptures have been displayed in France, said Deputy Minister of Culture and Information Le Tien Tho at the opening ceremony for the exhibition.
Open until Jan. 9 2006, Tho described the event as a vivid manifestation of friendship and cultural cooperation between Vietnam and France.
Brigitte Girardin, France's Minister Delegate for Cooperation, Development and the French-speaking Country, said the exhibition would help the French visitors better understand the ancient history of Vietnam and the Southeast Asian region, as well as help boost the mutual understanding between France and Vietnam.
France has been assisting Vietnam in preserving cultural heritages through a program to restore and modernize five museums.
The Cham people are descendants of the Champa kingdom, which was established in the second century. The kingdom, at its height in the ninth century, controlled the lands between Hue and the Mekong Delta and was prosperous with maritime trade in sandalwood and slaves.
The first religion of the Champa was a form of Hinduism, brought overseas from India. But, as Arab merchants stopped along the Vietnamese coast enroute to China, Islam began to infiltrate the civilization, and Hinduism soon became associated with the upper classes.
Between the rise of the Khmer Empire around the year 800 and Vietnam's territorial push to the south, the Champa kingdom began to diminish. Today, about 100,000 Cham still live in Vietnam, mainly in coastal Phan Rang and Phan Thiet provinces and on the Cambodian border around Chau Doc province.
The coastal communities are largely Hindu worshippers of Shiva and follow the matrilineal practices of their Cham ancestors. Many earn a living from farming, silk weaving and crafting jewelry of gold or silver. Groups along the Cambodian border are Islamic and mainly patrilineal. They engage in river-fishing, weaving and cross-border trade, with little agricultural activity.
On the whole, Cham traditional arts, principally dance and music, have experienced a revival in recent years.
Vietnam News Agency - October 12, 2005.
New photography book delves into Cham culture
Peregrination Into Cham Culture, an insightful and beautiful photography book depicting the Cham people and their culture, past and present, was published in Vietnamese, English and French.
The 407-page book includes 100 pages of writing and more than 600 colour and black-and-white photographs taken by Nguyen Van Ku between 1977 and 2004. It also includes documental photographs from the Ecole Francaise d'Extreme-Orient (EFEO), and 35 maps and drawings by French scholar Henri Parmentier.
Peregrination Into Cham Culture is a co-operative effort between the Viet Nam Institute of Southeast Asian Studies and the EFEO and was sponsored by the French Embassy in Vietnam.
The book, a complete image of the Cham people, was compiled using a combination of research and notes taken by tourists over the past centuries and, is meant to celebrate Cham culture, not examine it in an academic sense.
The book is divided into six sections: the ancient Cham people, ancient towers, ancient sculptures, ancient citadels, ancient steles and the Cham people today.
In the section about the Cham today, the authors provide readers with pictures of the life of the descendants of the ancient Cham culture. There are pictures of the traditional Ka Te festivals, weddings, and funerals, education and healthcare practices, and traditional professions like pottery, weaving, cultivation, and catching fish.
The authors, Nguyen Van Ku and Ngo Van Doanh, with a contribution by Dr Andrew Hardy, the head of the EFEO centre in Hanoi, spent about 25 years studying the Cham culture.
"This is a collection of our work that has spanned many years," Ku said.
"We spent three years creating a draft of the book and more than two years editing it."
Ku is former researcher at the Vietnamese Institute of Social Science, and Dr Doanh works at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. Both of them have written other books on Cham culture as well.
Today, the book, along with 70 Cham sculptures, is on exhibit at the Guimet Museum in Paris, France. The exhibition runs until January.
The Cham is among the 54 ethnic groups in Vietnam. It has created, promoted and preserved its culture for thousands of years. The Cham people now live in Ninh Thuan, An Giang, Tay Ninh, HCM City, Binh Dinh, Phu Yen and Khanh Hoa.
Vietnam News Agency - October 12, 2005.
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