Wayfinding in Vietnam

One of the most notable aspects of my experience in Vietnamese museums has been the restrictive wayfinding expectations. This seems to have manifested in two distinct ways.

First, the wayfinding materials such as directional signage and orientation maps dictate a fixed path around many museums. For example, the Museum of Da Nang has signs with arrows in each room with the instruction 'continue'. Similarly, the National Museum of History provides a map of the entire exhibition layout with a predetermined path to follow.

The second independent wayfinding restriction I experienced was the insistence of some of our Vietnamese colleagues in following a specific path around each museum from the 'start' to the 'finish' and their decision to stop and read from guidebooks about individual items they consider important. Perhaps this is not the universal experience of Vietnamese museums, as we were uniquely privileged to work with our own local experts; however, guided tours do seem to be the favoured interpretation strategy at some sites such as the Hue Citadel and the Temple of Literature in Hanoi.

I have found these wayfinding techniques particularly restrictive because, as an 'explorer', I am used to free-choice exploration where I can rely on sightlines to prioritise my visit. This very rarely involves following a set path, so these two wayfinding techniques have been insufficient in catering for my learning style.

It is interesting to consider these prevalent and fixed wayfinding techniques in the context of Vietnam. A fixed narrative approach, usually featuring a single, authoritative voice, seems to be the standard form of exhibition construction. This, perhaps, can be attributed to the historical control over the dissemination of information and the continuing approval process for many city and national museum displays in the country. In addition, it is obvious that the Vietnamese people generally speaking are very proud of their identity and their long and complex history. It must therefore be difficult to prioritise or allow visitors the freedom to prioritise certain parts of history over others by facilitating varying dwell times and free-choice navigation. 

This assumption may be supported by the observation that museums with narrower focuses and content that stretched smaller historical periods, such as the Hoi An Folklore Museum and the Temple of Literature, were much more free in their wayfinding instructions as they were less concerned about visitors skipping chronological events.

One final observation is the demonstration of everyday independent decision making by a majority of Vietnamese people in the form of traffic negotiation, where rules are only loosely obeyed and each driver takes her own initiative. It is interesting that this trust in independent choice is not extended into many museum experiences, where the decision making process and narrative construction seems to be the prerogative of the curator rather than placed in the hands of the visitor. This does, however, seem to be changing.