Remembrance of clocks past

Time is omnipresent for Do Ngoc Duy, who houses Vietnam’s largest clock collection in his humble home.

What time is it? Collector Do Duy Ngoc in his home, which is more like a museum

Do Duy Ngoc owns 617 clocks. Wall-to-wall clocks are all one can see upon entering his Phu Nhuan District home in Ho Chi Minh City.

Ngoc’s collection ranges from the new to the antique and from local to exotic.

Ngoc owns several European clocks that are over 100 years old. He most recently purchased a 140-year-old Dutch clock from a seller in Holland.

He also owns a 120-year-old German wall clock as well as 100-year-old J. Lecoultre clock from Canada. J. Lecoultre boasts that its clocks last 600 years.

But novelty plays just as important a role as antiquity in Ngoc’s collection.

He has one clock in which two drunkards clink their wine glasses together six times at six o’clock and twelve times at twelve o’clock.

In a similar vein, he owns a cuckoo clock in which two men saw through a chunk of wood with a two-man saw, moving to the rhythm of the pendulum.

Another one of 57-year-old Ngoc’s must-see clocks is adorned with characters from “The Arabian Nights.”

Ngoc owns more than 80 pendulum-clocks, some of which are made from genuine Black Forest wood from Germany.

In addition to grandfather clocks, Ngoc’s collection also consists of gold clocks and clocks made from bronze, paper and tin.

“Clocks remind us of the continuousness of the stream of time and that we should live each hour to the fullest,” says Ngoc.

Because of statements like this and his passion for clocks and time, Ngoc’s friends often compare him to Marcel Proust’s alter-ego in Remembrance of Things Past.

Source : Thanh Nien Daily