Arriving at the Museum, I felt like I was returning to a peaceful, quiet home of a relative when I saw the large red brick courtyard and the shady campus. The gentle green of the trees covering the space outside the Museum made anyone who came here slow down a beat and leave all the noise of the city behind the gate. The trip would turn into a visit to a loved one rather than a sightseeing tour to learn about knowledge.

Students of Edison An Khanh Secondary School (An Khanh Commune, Hanoi ) visit To Huu Museum.

Opened in 2020 on the basis of To Huu Memorial House, with an area of ​​120m2, To Huu Museum gives visitors a full, multi-dimensional view of the revolutionary, great poet To Huu. Coming to the Museum, visitors will experience two parts of content. Part 1 displays the life and career of To Huu with 9 themes, named after 9 poetry collections, his typical poems, associated with historical periods of the country. Part 2 recreates part of the space of poet To Huu's house at 76 Phan Dinh Phung (Hanoi) - where the poet and his family lived from 1960 until his death in 2002.

Interwoven in the exhibition areas are precious artifacts, carefully preserved by the poet's family and delicately arranged by experts. Talking with Ms. Pham Kim Ngan, Museum Manager, I was impressed by the stories behind each artifact. At the exhibition theme "From Then On", there is To Huu's memoir and Party Membership Card. Ms. Pham Kim Ngan said: "The open page in the memoir is To Huu's emotions when he was admitted to the Indochinese Communist Party in 1937. To Huu wrote: "I trembled all over, so moved. Blood rushed to my face, hot...". A year later, that emotion was still intact and fresh in him. Along with his political knowledge, he wrote the poem "From Then On" in 1938.

Next to the memoir is To Huu’s Party Membership Card, the paper and portrait have faded. It was the card the poet used from the time he joined the Party until his retirement, a single card like a lifelong oath of loyalty to the Party’s ideals. Connecting those two artifacts, then listening to the song “From Then On” recited by People’s Artist Thuy Mui through the audio box at the exhibition booth, I was even more moved by the poet’s passionate heart and absolute faith in the revolutionary ideal.

While visiting the Museum, I met teachers and students of Class 8A1, Edison An Khanh Secondary School (An Khanh Commune, Hanoi City) who came here to study after-school. In each student's hand was a small notebook, the pages were covered with lines of hastily written personal feelings. Ngo Hai Phong shared: "I was very moved when I learned about the life and career of poet To Huu, who devoted his whole life to the revolution and Vietnamese poetry. Thanks to his works, we felt like we were immersed in a heroic period of the nation's history."

According to Ms. Pham Kim Ngan, grasping the trend of digital transformation, To Huu Museum has researched the use of QR codes containing in-depth information about the exhibition contents; deployed an automatic explanation system with many languages, including: Vietnamese, English, French, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese; combined with the application of artificial intelligence (AI) technology in the translation and reading process. Open free of charge every Friday and Saturday, visitors can also participate in exhibitions and experiential activities organized by the Museum.

Article and photos: HOANG LAM

    Source: https://www.qdnd.vn/van-hoa/doi-song/noi-giao-thoa-cua-tho-ca-va-lich-su-849549