Hoa Lo Prison Museum -- Site Experience

The visit to Ho Lo Prison or the Hanoi Hilton was seen by many as a strong experiential space, detailing the brutalities of colonial prison life meted out by the French. The glimpses of the lives of American airmen and the tolerance shown by the Vietnamese also raised the question about those that construct such narratives.

Hoa Lo Museum gift shop

One of things I liked about Hoa Lo was the way that the gift shop extended the museum experience. The products for sale enabled visitors to take home a small part of that experience -- the strong emotional narrative of resistance against aggression --in a variety of different forms.

Contrast this with the shops in Van Mieu -- each of the items there could be bought at any street stall in Hanoi, and I found this particularly disappointing. On the other hand, our visit to the Women's Museum revealed how the shop became a focal point for empowering female craft producers in Vietnam and thus strengthened the mission and vision of the institution.

The point of this short thought-piece is that museum experience is located not just in the galleries and public programmes; it is bigger than the sum of the parts. As a tourist, I wanted things to remember my visit to Ho Loa (or the Women's Museum) -- something small and portable that captured the emotions and unique characteristics of these exciting institutions. Free choice learning helps us capture the motivations of such visitors -- tourists like me -- and enhance the museum visit to different types of visitors.

Graeme