Hang Hom Street

On this street, people once made a wooden chest painted vermilion red. Its surface was glossy, and its lid fit tight. Such chests held belongings, or offerings for worship. That picture is what the name Hàng Hòm still keeps, though the craft of making wooden chests slipped into the past long ago.

Hàng Hòm is about 120 meters long and only 6 meters wide. It lies deep in the heart of the Old Quarter of Hanoi. One end meets Hàng Quạt and Hàng Nón Streets. The other end opens onto Hàng Gai and Hàng Bông Streets.

The name states the original trade outright. Hòm is the Vietnamese word for a wooden chest. From around the middle of the 19th century, people from Hà Vĩ village came up to Thăng Long to make a living. Thăng Long is the city now called Hanoi. They settled in the hamlet of Cổ Vũ Thượng and brought with them the craft of making wooden goods coated in traditional lacquer.

They made and sold chests for clothes, boxes for paper and brushes, thrones for altars, and red couplets. All of it was coated in glossy black lacquer or in reddish brown, and decorated with painted flowers and leaves or with red lettering. In those days, a lacquered wooden chest was a dignified object in every home, from ordinary households to clan ancestral halls.

The lacquer technique of the Hà Vĩ villagers has an origin of its own. According to a local legend recorded in many documents, the founder of the craft was Trần Lư. He came from Bình Vọng village in Thường Tín. Tradition says he learned the fine techniques of oil lacquer and polished lacquer on a diplomatic mission, then taught them to his fellow villagers. That helped the lacquer craft grow across the Red River Delta. When the villagers set up their street in Thăng Long, they built a communal house at number 11 Hàng Hòm. It honored Trần Lư, so that they would remember what they owed the founder of their craft.

Then came the 20th century, and needs changed. From around the 1930s, the street turned gradually to leather goods: suitcases, school bags and travel bags in new styles. The making of wooden chests shrank, and it ended altogether at the end of the 1970s. The street's name, the communal house and a few scattered shops selling lacquerware are what remain of a trade that once fed a whole village that had moved up to the capital.

The clearest trace today is the Hà Vĩ communal house. For many years, people took over parts of it as housing. It was restored and formally reopened in June 2023. Now it is a cultural space for traditional lacquer, with a display called "The Flow of Vietnamese Lacquer". Artisans demonstrate the steps of coating, polishing, painting and finishing. They show why a single piece needs dozens of layers and many days of polishing before its surface shines like a mirror.

Many of the Old Quarter's treasures do not sit in bright shopfronts. They lie behind the gate of the communal house, in the vermilion coat of an old wooden chest and in the hands of a craftsman who still keeps the skill of his ancestors.