An impressive new celebrity wax museum has recently opened in Ho Chi Minh City, offering a Vietnamese slant on London’s famous Madame Tussauds. Words by Thomas Barrett. Photos by Mike Palumbo
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hen you think of wax museums the place that comes to mind is Madame Tussauds. Though the recently opened museum in Saigon is not affiliated with the famous brand, Nguyen Thi Dien of the Tuong Sap Viet Company, is hoping that the attraction will become a destination for visitors to Ho Chi Minh City looking to learn something about Vietnam. She is also confident that the uncanny quality of the waxworks matches those seen in London. Indeed, the idea to open the museum came from a trip to the UK capital over a decade ago. “At first the idea came after my husband visited Madame Tussauds in London,” she says. “He was impressed at how well made the sculptures were and how they looked like real people. We researched how to make them, but we weren’t very serious.”
Out Waxed The idea stayed with them until the first waxwork museum opened in Thailand a few years ago. They felt a twinge of national shame that there was a sculpture of Ho Chi Minh, but he was not in his home country.
54 | Word September 2017 | wordvietnam.com