WORDS ON THE STREET 70th anniversary of Hanoi's Liberation Day Vietnam - Asia 2023 Smart City Summit Hanoi celebrates 15 years of administrative boundary adjustment 12th Vietnam-France decentrialized cooperation conference 31st Sea Games - Vietnam 2021 Covid-19 Pandemic
Sep 06, 2014 / 10:26

Hanoi couple makes living with traditional paper masks

In the lead-up to the mid-Autumn festival, an old couple in Hanoi’s Old Quarter has made themselves busy creating traditional paper masks.

Nguyen Van Hoa and his wife live in a small house on Hang Thang Street, Hoan Kiem District. They have been practicing this traditional craft for more than 30 years. The two started in the 1980s, when paper masks were very popular.
The couple makes thousands of paper masks of all kinds for the festival. Their products are diverse in design, many resembling famous characters from Vietnamese literature, such as Chi Pheo and Thi No. Others look like the heads of animals. Sunny days are much more productive for them, when they can make around 20 masks. If it rains, however, their output is much lower.