Le Van Dung, a 54‑year‑old farmer from Ca Mau, has turned his home into a showcase of rural history. He has spent nearly a decade collecting hundreds of traditional stone mills, and some of them are over 200 years old. This story shows how one person can keep memories alive.

Dung’s collecting started with two stone mills, almost a hundred years old, that he inherited from his maternal grandfather. He kept the mills in his home to remember the hard work of the past.

Over the past ten years Dung travelled across Ca Mau and other provinces, buying mills that cost between VND300,000 ($11) and more than VND2 million ($76). He often had to persuade owners who did not want to sell. The mills are now displayed in a thatched shelter outside his house, creating a ‘living archive’ that visitors and locals can explore, and Dung hopes the collection will teach younger generations about past hardships.

Dung also plans to build a fence from the stone mills he has gathered. He wants the fence to remind future children of how earlier generations lived and worked.