Hang Trong Street

In a long, narrow house on Hàng Trống Street, lamplight falls yellow on a wooden table. The artisan lays a sheet of dó paper on a printing block and presses it gently. When it is lifted away, fine black lines have appeared. A brush dipped in daylily dye touches the paper, and the paper rustles softly under the fingers. This is the making of tranh Hàng Trống, the folk paintings of this street.

According to the newspaper Hànộimới, Hàng Trống Street is almost 400 meters long, in the Hoàn Kiếm area. It starts at the junction of Hàng Gai and Hàng Bông streets. It ends at Lê Thái Tổ Street, beside Hoan Kiem Lake. Three villages made up the old street. They were Cổ Vũ and Khánh Thụy Hữu. The third was Tự Tháp.

The street's name points straight to its first trade. Hànộimới says the top of the street, in Cổ Vũ village, was where drum makers gathered. They came from the village of Liêu Xá, in Yên Mỹ district, to open shops in Thăng Long, the city now called Hanoi. Drums for the communal house, the pagoda, the festival and chèo theater were made in small workshops here. Chèo is a traditional form of Vietnamese theater. The drum makers brought the drum craft of the northern delta to the gate of the capital.

Farther on, another heritage begins. In Tự Tháp village, the same newspaper says, the painting shops gathered and the Hàng Trống folk painting tradition took shape. It includes worship paintings such as the Five Tiger Generals, the Holy Mothers of the Three Halls, and the Lady of the Upper Forest. It also includes the four-panel Tứ Bình paintings and scenes of daily life.

Hàng Trống paintings hold their own place because of a half-printed, half-painted technique. Two newspapers, Hànộimới and Nhân Dân, describe it. The main lines are carved into a wooden block and printed in black on dó paper. Then the colors are painted on and shaded by hand. Đông Hồ prints are different: they print both the lines and the areas of color, using several blocks. Hàng Trống paintings leave most of the work to the brush. The lines are finer, the dye colors softer. They have a light ink-wash look, the taste of the townspeople of Hanoi.

Today no drums sound along the street, and the paintings are kept mostly in a few small workshops and in museums. In 2023, says the Nhân Dân newspaper, an exhibition called Dialogue with the Hàng Trống Folk Painting Tradition was held at the Temple of Literature. It showed 38 contemporary works by 22 artists, beside dó paper paintings by the artisans.

Midway along the street, at number 75, stands Nam Hương communal house, built in the Lê period, according to a Hanoi newspaper. It honors Long Đỗ, the guardian deity of Thăng Long. He is also called Bạch Mã. It also honors the Great Kings Cao Sơn and Linh Lang. In 1995, the Ministry of Culture and Information ranked it a historical and cultural site. It shares the worship of Bạch Mã with the Bạch Mã Temple on nearby Hàng Buồm Street. That temple is the Eastern Guardian of Thăng Long. From here, a short walk leads to the shore of Hoan Kiem Lake, with Tháp Rùa, the Turtle Tower, and Ngọc Sơn Temple.

Hàng Trống Street is only a little under 400 meters long, yet it carries the sound of drums from the northern delta, the shaded brushwork of dó paper, and the breath of three old village communal houses. Look at a sheet just lifted from the block, in a small workshop at the end of the street. Hanoi is not only in the shimmering face of the lake. It also lies in every smear of daylily dye not yet dry on the artisan's hand.