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Seeking the past: Y Thim works hard to find items to exchange. He is sometimes willing to pay up to tens of millions of dong for unique and rare artefacts.
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The house in Cu Ea Buar Hamlet, Buon Ma Thuot city, is privately owned by Centre of Culture and Information official Y Thim and known locally as the "Museum of Central Highlands Legacy".
Y Thim regularly drives his ploughing machine to remote areas to collect old and broken machinery and artefacts for restoration.
The devices, including musical instruments – one example is a flat metal disc (gong) which is hit by a mallet – ornamental jars, Kpan chairs and so on. All have been thrown away by villagers.
"Once I visited a villager's house and saw his family selling a set of damaged gong to a scrap dealer. I offered to buy the instrument for a higher price and then have them restored," says Y Thim.
Y Thim says that he always pondered the fact that the modern generation no longer sees value in such cultural and subsistence artefacts, causing the instruments and machinery to be discarded and forgotten.
"I want to preserve these traditional treasures of the villages," says Y Thim.
Many traditional pieces are still plentiful and easy to find, and generally their owners just hand them over and are glad to get rid of them, Y Thim says. But with rare and unique artefacts, he has to find something to exchange for them or to pay for them, sometimes up to tens of millions of dong.
For instance, Y Thim once heard of someone who owned a set of 10 bronze-mixed-gold gong aged 100 years old. But the owner wanted to exchange them for three male elephants, which the family could not afford. After frequent visits Y Thim got the price down to three buffaloes, which were worth 20 taels (US$ 33,52).
At present, there are nearly 20 sets of gong, 30 ornamental jars and many other unique devices in Y Thim's museum, the results of 20 years collecting.
Y Than Nie K'dam, the patriarch of Ea Bong Village in Cu Ea Buar Hamlet, says the collection maybe worth "tens of elephants and hundred of buffaloes".
"Even the total number of villagers can not compare to his collection," K'dam said.
Y Thim is also a music teacher and teaches children in the village how to use the ethnic devices.
His two sons, Y Nal and Y Na are graduates of the Military of Culture and Arts College, while his youngest child, Y Thu E Ban, is capable of playing eight kinds of musical instruments.
Y Thim, whose family and museum house are considered "living treasures" of the Central Highlands, says: "Preserving traditional devices is necessary so that younger generations will learn about their ancestors and will treasure the cultural legacies of their fathers." — VNS
