Hang Quat Street

A knife cuts gently into a square block of wood, behind a narrow window on Hàng Quạt Street, just off Lương Văn Can Street. The smell of new wood and seal ink drifts out onto the street. Sunlight falls on glass cases of gilded altar goods, crimson ceremonial banners, and wooden seals set neatly in rows.

The street is short. Its length is only about 200 meters, according to a feature on 1,000 years of Thăng Long Hanoi from the State Committee for Overseas Vietnamese. It lies in Hàng Gai ward, in Hoàn Kiếm, near Hoan Kiem Lake. It runs from Lương Văn Can Street to Hàng Nón Street. Under French rule it was called Rue des Eventails, which means Fan Street.

The old trade is right there in the name. The same source says most of the paper fan makers came from Vác village, whose written name is Canh Hoạch, in Thanh Oai district. They came up to the capital and formed guilds. Some fans they made themselves, and others they bought to sell on the street. To honor the founder of their craft, the guilds built a small communal house at number 4 Hàng Quạt. Its written name was Xuân Phiến thị, which means the spring fan market.

Early in the 20th century, electric fans and electric lights came to Hanoi, and the trade in paper fans faded. The shops turned to altar goods, inscribed boards and couplets, ceremonial banners, and handmade wooden goods.

Along Hàng Quạt today, the thread of that trade is still easy to see. Inside are carved altar tables, red-lacquered and gilded boxes for altar goods, ritual lamps, and hanging couplets. A few steps on, a glass case holds wooden seals.

According to the newspaper Nhân Dân, there are now six or seven seal-carving shops on the street. At number 6 is the workshop of the artisan Phạm Toàn, whose family has worked in wood carving for five generations. The carver uses a knife and a chisel to cut a name, the Turtle Tower, a city gate, or a portrait into the wood. Every stroke of writing must be carved in reverse, so that it shows the right way round when pressed onto paper.

A few doors away is a workshop that makes wooden molds for mooncakes. As the Mid-Autumn season comes, the time for watching the moon, the carver chisels and shaves all day to deliver the molds to the cake makers in time. Each mold has its own design. Sometimes it is the character Phúc or the character Thọ, and sometimes a fish or a lotus.

So Hàng Quạt is a street where handwork can be watched. The knife moves line by line across the wood, and the artisan's hands hold the blank steady under yellow lamplight. It is a craft that is still alive among the 36 streets of old Hanoi, a figure that is traditional rather than exact.

The short stretch seems to hold layers of time laid one over another. The layer of paper fans from Vác village has withdrawn into the name. The layer of altar goods still glows under the lamps. And the layer of seal and mold carving is still being done, in plain sight. The knife taps lightly, the smell of fresh wood drifts out, and on the small square of wood a reversed stroke slowly appears. It waits for one press onto paper to become a seal.