With a dearth of traditional toys for children Nguyen Thi Huong, director of the Centre for Research and Support for Vietnamese Children (Cenforchil), says they play with imported alternatives. Huong and her staff at Cenforchil plan to establish Viet Nam’s first toy museum by early 2012 in Ha Noi. Why does Viet Nam need a toy museum? Toys are very important to a child’s development. Selecting the right toys for a child to play with is no less important. Traditional toys have declined in Viet Nam, which is swamped with foreign imports. Children are now playing with toys that are often unsafe and are not educational. The task of preserving our heritage is therefore more urgent than ever. Many countries in the world have toy museums, while Viet Nam, which has a long history of toy-making, does not have one. When travelling around the country I found that many children knew nothing about traditional Vietnamese toys and games. They had also never learnt folk songs or dances. Toys imported from China, such as dolls and plastic guns, are popular in remote areas. Children living in big cities just play computer games. We conducted a survey and found that 80 per cent of foreign toys sold in Viet Nam were made in China. While diversified in form and appearance, most were cheap and unsafe because of the materials used to make them. That’s the sad reality and that is why I wanted to set up the museum. The hope is that… [Read full story]
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