Curating Memory: Cold-War Narratives in Museums and Memorials in Taiwan, Vietnam, South Korea, and Cambodia

Abstract

In many East and Southeast Asian countries, the Cold War remains alive through places of memory that capture parts of the Cold War’s legacy. This essay explores the topic of the visual and experiential language of the Cold War as expressed in these places of memory, where governments, civil society organizations, and individuals continue to recast and adapt their official and unofficial narratives of the Cold War and its enduring legacies. This article is based on a series of trips that the author took while in graduate school to places of memory in Taiwan (Kinmen Island, its war museums and memorials, and Cold War souvenir industry), Vietnam (Cu Chi and various museums in Ho Chi Minh City), South Korea (the War Memorial of Korea in Seoul), and Cambodia (the Cambodia Landmine Museum, Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, and Choeung Ek Killing Fields) and subsequent research. It weaves together the visitor’s immediate experience as a foreigner and tourist with an understanding of how each place situates its narrative in the historical mainstream. Places of memory are focal points for experiencing countries’ Cold War histories, especially for foreign travelers, but must also contend with preconceived Cold War narratives obtained from Western media, creating tension in determining which representation is more authentic and whether the local museum may be as full of propaganda as the international movie. Throughout all of the selected places of memory, there remain unaddressed questions of identity — who we are, what we did, what was done to us, who we want to be — that spur visitors to reflect on these questions for places of memory relevant to their own countries and selves.