Xuan La Dough Toys

The toy maker asked the little boy which animal he wanted.

A chicken! The boy stood close against his mother and answered without a moment's pause. The toy maker smiled and opened the small box resting on his lap. He made tò he, little toys molded from colored rice dough. That weekend morning, he sat beside Hoan Kiem Lake, right in front of Ngọc Sơn Temple. In the box were a few lumps of colored dough, a small comb, a bundle of bamboo sticks and a little beeswax. That was all the gear a tò he maker needed.

He shaped the body first. He pinched off a piece of red dough and rolled it back and forth into a plump, round body. Then he pinched off a ball of yellow dough for the head, with a tiny beak. The legs came last. A few strokes of green and black on the wings, and it was done. In just a few minutes, the chicken stood on the tip of a bamboo stick. It was bright red, with a sunny yellow head. Tò he makers have a saying: first red, second yellow. The more red and yellow a figure has, the brighter and more eye-catching it looks. The boy's mother took the bamboo stick, and the chicken went off with them.

The toy maker came from Xuân La village, in Phượng Dực commune. It lies in the southern part of Hanoi, right on the bank of the Nhuệ River. People call Xuân La the cradle of tò he. Many say it is now the only village in the whole country where the craft is still handed down from father to son.

In his village, some old people, some young people and even some small children know how to shape the figures. Villagers also hold classes to teach children the craft. Asked how old the craft is, the village elders say more than 300 years. Some say it goes back even further. No one has yet found a single page that records when it began.

He had made the dough at home, in the village. He mixed ordinary rice with sticky rice, soaked it in water, then ground it very fine. Once it was ground, he cooked it on the stove, then kneaded it with quick hands. He changed the mix of rice with the seasons, because in winter the dough needs to be more pliable than in summer. After kneading, he divided the dough into portions and dyed each one a different color. He left a little of it white.

In the old days, every color of tò he was borrowed from plants. Red came from gấc fruit, yellow from the flowers of the pagoda tree, and green from leaves. Some say black came from bamboo charcoal, and others say from a plant called nhọ nồi. White needed no dye at all, because it is the color of the rice grain itself. Red, yellow, green and black were the four root colors. Every other color was mixed from those four.

Toward noon, more and more customers stopped by. A little girl asked for Tôn Ngộ Không, the Monkey King of the Chinese novel Journey to the West. When he shaped a person, the order changed: the legs first, then the body, and only then the head. He took the small comb and gently brushed a few strands of hair onto the dough head. The Monkey King stood up on his stick. The girl's father took the stick and held it high for his daughter to admire. After her, one child asked for one of the twelve animals of the zodiac. Another wanted Trư Bát Giới, called Pigsy in English, from the same novel. Another wanted a cartoon character. Whatever anyone wanted, he shaped on the spot.

In the early afternoon, it was the turn of a little boy who wanted a water buffalo. The toy maker smoothed a pair of curving horns onto the buffalo's head, then set it on a bamboo stick. In earlier days, makers fixed their tò he to little bamboo rings, and only much later to sticks. The buffalo sat snugly in the father's hand as father and son walked away.

The water buffalo is one of the familiar shapes of old tò he. Many people say the very first tò he were shaped like birds and egrets. Besides the buffalo, old tò he included peacocks, chickens, pigs and fish. In those days, villagers also shaped bunches of bananas, areca nuts and plates of sticky rice from the dough, to set out on the offering table. Then they shaped a boy playing the flute on a buffalo's back, and a village girl, and Thánh Gióng on horseback, pulling up bamboo. Sơn Tinh, the mountain god of an old legend, also came to life from those lumps of dough, and so did princesses.

At the Mid-Autumn Festival feast in those days, adults set out tò he too. When the children finished playing, the adults steamed the figures again so they could be eaten. But the old tò he did not keep long. Left too long, the dough dried out and cracked, and sometimes it grew mold.

A father carrying a baby came over and asked for a fish. The fish's tail fanned out beneath the toy maker's fingers, and the father took the bamboo stick with the fish on it.

Tò he makers of the past did not sit in one place as he did that day. They shaped figures when the fields needed less work, most of all during the three months of the festival season. From one country market to the next, they followed the village festivals across the plains of northern Vietnam. They prepared their dough right along the way. Little by little, Xuân La tò he spread from the north of the country to the south. Today, tò he makers often sit at school gates, in corners of parks or on walking streets. They are busiest at Tết, the Lunar New Year festival in Vietnam, and at the Mid-Autumn Festival. Mid-Autumn is still the season when the village makes the most figures.

Another small child wanted a pig. The toy maker rolled the pig's body round and plump. The child's mother took the bamboo stick, and the pig lay quietly on its tip.

People tell different stories of why tò he were first made. Some say children around the area once had few toys, so villagers shaped dough for them. Others say people first shaped birds and egrets from clay and fired them. Only much later did they switch to sticky rice dough, so the toys of that time could be eaten after play. There is also a telling that tò he began as offerings, given to children only after the ceremony.

Craftspeople like him also call tò he by a plain, homely name, which simply means dough figures. As for the name tò he, everyone explains it a little differently. Some say that long ago, each figure carried a tiny whistle made from a bamboo tube. When blown, it went tò te, and people slurred the sound into tò he. Others say that at first, people shaped only a rabbit blowing a horn. The horn went toe toe, and that sound became the name.

Some dough figures have traveled very far. In a few museums in France, figures made more than a hundred years ago are still kept, labeled as Mid-Autumn toys from Hanoi. Once, in Hanoi, tò he makers from many regions shaped new figures after those old models and put them on show for everyone to see.

The red lump and the yellow lump had shrunk visibly. The customers had all gone home. He gathered up the leftover bamboo sticks and packed the lumps of colored dough into the box. At the bottom of the box lay a pinch of white dough, with no dye at all.

He rolled that pinch into the last figure of the day. He shaped a slender body first, then a small head on a long neck, and last of all a pair of tall, thin legs. A white egret had taken shape.