Hàng Quạt-Hàng Hòm-Hàng Mành
VGP - Naturally in a hot, humid climate, fan making in Hà Nội became a highly specialized traditional craft. There were paper fans, thin silk fans, duck feather fans, fans made using bone frames, ivory frames and bamboo frames – and fans so dedicatedly pierced that they shimmered like silk when the sun shown through, There were even fans for separating rice from the husks.
Today Hàng Quạt is a
riot of brass, red silk and gold tassels where all manner of religious
paraphernalia, ranging from small altars for ancestor worship to full-sized
temple altars and statues of Buddha can be purchased along with ceremonial
objects, funeral and prayer flags, gilt panels for mounting on temple pillars
and wood blocks for printing prayer papers. It is one of the most colourful
streets in the Old Quarter. Banners bearing the Chinese ideograms for “longervity”,
“wealth” and “health” hang above statues of Buddha, Confucius and various Tao
deties. Especially popular are the female Buddha (Guan Yin), the
Goddesses of Mercy; the Earth God (Ông Địa ) and
the God of Money (Ông
Tài) – look for two small china figures in the home altars. Ông Địa holds a fan; Ông Tài holds a
casket, presumably full of money. They often appear in small altars piled with
fruit, incense and votive paper just inside shop entrances.
A friendly young girl sitting at a pavement cafe helps me
to discover that the communal house of fan-makers, hidden away down an alley at
No. 74 Hàng Quạt is now used as
a private home.
The big, old-fashioned lock of the well-kept temple between
Nos. 6 and 32 (sic) Hàng Quạt is opened by
an old man, sitting at a nearby pavement cafe, who explains in a few words of
French that it honours those who died during the war 1945-1975, World War II,
the Indochinese War and the American-Việt Nam War. He lights and hands me three joss
sticks to plant in the urns on the altar, behind which a marble tableau lists
their names.
The Đào Temple at No. 64, so-called because it was established
by the people of Đào
Village, is dedicated to the goddess, Liễu Hạnh, the goddess of Vân Cát in Nam Định province. One
story says that she was actually an angel, exiled to earth from heaven as
punishment for having broken the cup containing the nectar of immortality.
While on earth she died and in later reincarnations, one as Princess Liễu Hạnh, she
reappeared on earth and granted good luck to people.
In the second version, she was exiled sixteenth century
mandarin’s daughter, who later became reincarnated as the Earth Mother Goddess.
Her followers perform ceremonies involving trance and possession. The ritual
clothes for these ceremonies were bought on Hàng Quạt. Unfortunately, the temple looks to
be permanently closed.
The west end of Hàng Quạt, Hàng Đàn (Wooden Bowls), also used to
specialise in stringed musical instruments: Moon-shaped
lute (đàn nguyệt), 16-string
zither (đàn tranh), monochord
- a one-stringed
instrument unique to Việt
Nam (đàn bầu), and two-string
fiddle (đàn hồ).
South into Hàng Hòm (lacquer) or Hàng Mành (Spilt Bamboo
Blinds)
Two short streets run south off Hàng Quạt, Hàng Hòm at first
specialised in making black trunks and boxes for storing clothes and document
cases. Later, the boxes began to be painted, then in time they were lacquered.
A temple at No. 11 – its passageway now littered with plastic storage
containers – honoured the master of painting and lacquering, Trần Lữ, who died in
1540 and had taught his crafts to the people of Binh Trang village. Wooden and
bamboo instruments are still sold at Nos. 1A, 4 B and 16 Hàng Hòm.
In Hàng Mành, a fairly recent specialty, which came into existence
just over a century ago, was the making of split bamboo blinds. At the end of
1938, No. 1 Hàng Mành, then
a barber shop, was the secret headquarters of the Hà Nội Community
Party.
Hàng
Mành is now lined with paint shops, but shops at Nos. 1, 3 and 13 keep the
tradition of selling bamboo blinds.
