1Before arriving at the two groups of villages to be visited on this first circuit, we strongly recommend a visit along the way in order to admire the architectural, cultural and religious riches of Đình Bảng, a famous village, set back from the main road between Hà Nội and Bắc Ninh. This stop – nonetheless optional – can give you a chance to appreciate the amazing contrast between the industrial atmosphere that reigns in the commune along the main road (National Highway n^o1A) and the timeless bliss at this site of temples overlooking paddy fields, their backs resolutely turned on the 21st century…

ĐÌNH BẢNG AND ITS HISTORICAL BUILDINGS

GETTING TO ĐÌNH BẢNG

2To leave Hà Nội, cross Chýõng Dýõng Bridge towards the east and continue straight on until you reach the intersection for the motorway to Hải Phòng. Bear left on National Highway n^o1A towards the town of Bắc Ninh. Continue straight on and cross the bridge over the Đuống River. At km 16 (shown by a kilometre marker on the side of the road), you enter the commune of Đình Bảng, very industrialised along the main road. Pass through this industrial area called Phố Mới (new neighbourhood). You will see a sign saying that the đình (communal house) is 500 metres further on, on the right after having passed through the centre of the village (in fact, it’s more like a kilometre!). Approaching through narrower and narrower alleyways, you will at last reach this magnificent monument, surrounded on all sides by a market and some very dense housing.

3Đình Bảng has been a prosperous village for a very long time, well known throughout the Red River Delta. It is the birthplace of the Lý Dynasty (11^th to 13^th centuries), of which eight kings are supposed to be buried in or around the village. Legend has it that the royal remains were placed under burial mounds scattered among the villages paddy fields: King Lý Thái Tổ apparently wished to rest in a simple earthen grave covered with forage for pasture, so that children minding water buffalo (as they still do today) might remember the Lý Kings. It is said that these simple royal tombs were placed in a forest, Bảng Forest to be exact, long ago situated in the middle of the village. Unfortunately, the last traces of this forest disappeared at the beginning of the 20^th century, and nobody currently knows the location of these royal remnants; so see if you can find them! A map in the grounds of Đô Temple indicates the position of the graves, but it appears to be more a virtual or ideal layout than a real one.

4The architectural jewel in Đình Bảng’s crown, being renovated during our last visit: the đình, or communal house. Despite this being an area exceptionally rich in architectural heritage, the đình at Đình Bảng is one of the most famous in all of Kinh Bắc, the former region of which the current province of Bắc Ninh is a part. An old saying goes:

5“In the classification of communal houses, Đông Khang comes in first place, then Đình Bảng in second, while Diêm occupies an honourable third place.”

6The đình at Đông Khang was reduced to dust long ago, which promotes that of Đình Bảng into first place in the đình hit parade – and the visitor won’t be disappointed. It is a very fine building, impressive for its size, the originality of its construction, the richness of detail and its position set apart from the rest of the village.

7Built at the beginning of the 18^th century by a mandarin, Nguyễn Thạc Lýợng, the communal house was a present made to his village of birth to celebrate the cult of three guardian spirits (the Spirits of Water, Earth and Harvest). Unlike many other ancient constructions at Đình Bảng and elsewhere, it has survived the passage of time, fires, storms, various kinds of insects and even wars: in 1954, the French colonial forces, beating a destructive retreat (and one which transpired to be decisive) chained their tanks to the house’s pillars, trying to bring it down. Happily for posterity, the communal house refused to be laid low.

8Let us go back to the 17^th century: aided by his wife Nguyễn Thị Nguyên, Nguyễn Thạc Lýợng initially oversaw the construction of three smaller houses in the village in preparation of their masterwork. One of these houses, which was to become the retired mandarin’s family seat, still stands and can also be visited since Japanese-aided renovation.

The communal house (đình)

9The communal house is one of the key centres of village life. A common Vietnamese expression can be translated as: “As big as a communal house”, which conjures up a building as imposing and omnipresent in daily life as the Gothic church at the heart of a European village in the Middle Ages. The historical annals recount the existence of communal houses in Vietnam since the 15^th century, but the oldest examples still standing to this day are from the 16^th. These classical houses were built of solid wood with big and heavy tile roofs. Villagers have continued to build đình, even in the 20^th century, but it is no longer possible to put up such big and richly decorated buildings with so costly materials.

10Each village in Vietnam usually has its communal house. It is normally the biggest structure in the village, and the focal point of community pride and identity, fulfilling the following functions:

• a place devoted to the worship of the village’s guardian spirit(s);
• a meeting place, where people gather in order to discuss the affairs of village life;
• a structure for holding festivals, celebrations and performances of all kinds, from tuồng (classical Vietnamese opera), chèo (popular Vietnamese opera), to quan họ (love duets: see box towards the end of this itinerary) to even rối nýớc (water puppets: see explanations in the Part 1 p. 49).

11The other big traditional public buildings, also (and above all) places of worship, are pagodas (chùa), devoted to the worship of Buddha, and temples (ðền), dedicated to deified people of all kinds, be they former kings, military heroes, various martyrs or wise benefactors (see Part 1 p. 51).

12The đình, at 30 metres long by 15 metres wide, is one of the biggest wooden constructions in Vietnam. The tiled roof makes up about three-quarters of the total height of the building and weighs several tons. Sixty enormous pillars carved from ironwood hold up the roof. Legend has it that Nguyễn Thị Nguyên had the wood brought for these pillars from her native province of Thanh Hoá (where her husband had been governor). This kind of large-scale building project was carried out by workers under the control of a master-carpenter. Much of the woodwork was assembled beforehand down on the ground, and then two large teams each put up one half of the building. The celebrations when the teams finally met up in the middle were surely as memorable as those between the British and French workers boring the tunnel under the English Channel!

13For reasons of geomancy, the đình is placed on slightly raised ground and faces south. However, when it was built, care was taken not to cement the pillars to their stone plinths, making it potentially possible to move the building (a very theoretical option, it would seem, given the failure of the French tanks…), should future generations of geomancers advise this course of action.

14The interior is richly decorated with wooden bas-reliefs and the beams and pillars are finely sculpted, particularly with several figures of dragons and other animals, real and mythical. Look for a particularly original carving on a panel of the partition (between the bigger and smaller pillars), depicting eight horses running a race.

15The annual festival for the guardian spirits takes place on the 12^th day of the 2^nd lunar month, and games and entertainment are the order of the day: Chinese chess, wrestling, cockfighting, games on a swing. In the evening, there are chèo and quan họ performances (see box p. 89). There is also an annual festival in honour of the Lục Tổ, the six founders of the village (from the 15^th century), which is held on the 6^th day of the 1^st lunar month.

ĐÔ TEMPLE

16To get to Đô Temple, walk down the left side of the đình, strike off to the left and then turn right. After 400 metres or so, you will see on your right a large expanse of water. Follow its edge and enter into the temple grounds. A large halfmoon-shaped pond gives onto the various buildings of the site.

17This đền (temple) to the east of the village is dedicated to the eight kings and is called Đô Temple, or sometimes Lý Bát Đế Temple (temple of the eight Lý emperors). The building you see today is a modern one, completed at the end of the 1990s, which replaces the original one, built in the 11^th (or perhaps 13^th) century. The original temple was extensively renovated and enlarged in the 17^th century and was made up of 21 structures, including a water pavilion that later appeared on the five-piaster bills printed by the French colonial regime.

18Sadly, this old temple was destroyed at the beginning of the 1950s, during the war. The modern building houses statues of the eight Lý kings. It will be noted with pleasure that the names of these kings are much easier to tell apart and remember than, for example, the eight Kings of England called Henry, who (in keeping with tradition) all had the same Christian name (in this case, Henry). Beginning with the great Lý Thái Tổ (the Dynasty’s founder) and his son, Lý Thái Tông, the others, in no particular order, are: Lý Thánh Tông, Lý Thần Tông, Lý Nhân Tông, Lý Anh Tông, Lý Huệ Tông and Lý Cao Tông. At the end of this circuit, slake your thirst with a few glasses of rice wine (also in keeping with tradition) and try to recite these names rapidly, first forwards, then backwards.

19The kings’statues are worshipped during the temple’s festival, which begins on the 15^th day of the 3^rd month of the lunar calendar and lasts for four days. Every three or four years, the celebrations are on a much bigger scale. On the 15^th day, the statue of Lý Thái Tổ is enthroned with great pomp. On the 16^th day, a procession carries the eight statues to the Cổ Pháp Pagoda (named after the place where the Lý kings originally came from). It was here that Lý Công Uẩn (who later assumed the more media-friendly name – you know it well already – of Lý Thái Tổ) is said to have spent his youth as a Buddhist novice (unless it was at the Tiêu Sõn Pagoda, a few kilometres away, which also claims this distinction). In addition to these rites and many others, traditional games are organised: wrestling, cockfighting and, on the 17^th day, in front of the temple, a life-sized game of (Chinese) chess using human beings as pieces. Once you have completed your visit, you can go directly back to National Highway n^o1A, by going left along the road that passes in front of the temple.

ĐỒNG KỴ AND THE CLUSTER OF FINE FURNITURE VILLAGES

GETTING TO ĐỒNG KỴ

20Once you’re back onto National Highway n^o1A, turn right towards the town of Bắc Ninh. You will come out directly at the entrance to the administrative centre of Từ Sõn District. You can even take the opportunity to taste the sweet speciality of the village of Trung Hoà (Ðình Bảng Commune), bánh Phu Thê (husband and wife cakes) offered for sale by a host of vendors at the roadside. These square cakes, always sold in pairs (trouble and strife, sales and marketing, buy one, get one free1 …), are a must for weddings in the Kinh Bắc region. It is said that the gooey texture of the cakes reflects the sticky nature of marriage ties. We leave it up to you to digest this parallel as best you see fit, but remember that they are much versed in very viscous victuals, the Vietnamese. The cakes are made with sticky rice flower tinted yellow with gardenia extract, while grapefruit flowers and chunks of papaya are added to give it more flavour. They are filled with a special mixture of green bean paste, coconut and lotus seeds (see Itinerary n^o2 for the processing of these seeds). They are cooked by steaming them in maranta (a kind of arrowroot or dong) leaves.

21Trần Phú Street crosses this small administrative and commercial centre. When you get to n^o188, turn left and cross the railway line. You will come to Đồng Kỵ after having passed through the village of Trang Liệt that serves as an overflow area to artisans who did not receive a plot of land in the industrial park. To your right, a Riviera with lines of houses all built in straight rows, brightly coloured with brash façades: this is Đồng Kỵ Industrial Park.

THE CONTEXT

22Let’s be clear from the word gỗ (wood in Vietnamese): Đồng Kỵ is one of a certain number of less bucolic craft villages in this guide, but (as are the others in the same category) it is a very interesting one, as it has a remarkable history and exhibits the various stages of a production process that is still a traditional craft industry. If you care to dig, there is a rich heritage to be uncovered here.

23Đồng Kỵ is the village at the heart of a cluster of ten or so others that produce fine wooden furniture in the west of Bắc Ninh Province. As you will see, the centre of Đồng Kỵ is incredibly congested, with a particularly dense population (more people live in this one village than in several of the surrounding communes). It’s a very unusual urban-style development in an environment that is still very rural, and one that confronts the visitor – there are piles of wood everywhere you look – with a critical issue here: management of space.

24Đồng Kỵ has enjoyed a long history of trade (particularly in buffaloes), which without a doubt explains in large part its current success. Paradoxically, however, as in many craft villages, it is the lack of cultivatable land or its poor yield that pushed the villagers into finding other means of occupying themselves in order to survive: Đồng Kỵ has limited land resources in an area of the Delta that is relatively high in altitude and thus poorly served by the hydraulic network. The single annual rice crop that was originally harvested here did not suffice to fill all mouths to be fed. For in spite of a few sweet potatoes and peanuts cultivated on the side for diversity of diet, growing wet rice without enough water soon spells famine.

25The solution found by some villagers was to do a little carpentry on the side – making simple furniture to be sold locally or by moving around elsewhere in the Delta as thợ mộc, itinerant carpenters, selling their services on construction sites for everyday or religious buildings. Several men from the village were away for months at a time doing this work during the agricultural low season, just as in many other villages, in Hà Tây Province for example, as we will see in the itineraries over there. Meanwhile, the women of Ðồng Kỵ set about weaving: they produced a simple white or brown cloth, used to make clothes and sails.

4 x 4 (x 5)

26Some people from Ðồng Kỵ managed to become water buffalo traders. In fact, it is believed that this trade began in the village a very long time ago. During the colonial period, there was the big Giàu Market, specialised in buffaloes, which was held six times every lunar month in the village of Phù Lýu, two kilometres from Ðồng Kỵ, where about 500 head of cattle were sold every day! Ten or so rich traders from Ðồng Kỵ used to collect buffaloes from all over the mountainous provinces of the North, selling them to intermediaries from the Deltaic provinces, either as work animals (70%), or for meat (30%). Indeed, if you order a steak this evening back in Hà Nội, there is still a very good chance that you’ll be eating buffalo… This activity required a lot of capital and a large workforce. The trader would send out teams to bring back buffaloes on foot (at a ratio of one man for five beasts), finding food for them along the way. Imagine the appetite of five hungry buffaloes (and one man) during three or four days’march across the plain… Back in Đồng Kỵ, about 200 people made a living providing forage for the animals, while another 50 or so retrieved their dung to sell it to farmers. Some traders became extremely rich – and even those who took care of the metabolising inputs and outputs of these insatiable bovines earned ten times more than their comrades slaving away over a hot paddy field. The ancient practice by village women of collecting dung did not always play in their favour: some people of neighbouring villages, jealous of the success of these businesswomen – they were notorious for driving a hard bargain –, delight in recalling to mind this humble activity, not without a certain irony. The strong polarisation of this trade in buffaloes led to the establishment of a vast commercial network: on the supply side, villages in mountainous and hilly regions; on the demand side, villages everywhere in the Delta and even further afield: during the colonial period, some traders exported buffaloes to as far away as Hong Kong, by train to Hải Phòng, then on by boat. A commodity chain was born.

So how did the Dongkinese move from selling four-legged friends to making three-piece suites?

27Of course, several factors came into play: the first, curbing the activity of the buffalo traders, was the revolutionary war. The buffalo trade halted completely from 1945 to 1954.

28Later, after the Việt Minh victory, came the collectivist era. Vietnam began to receive agricultural machinery produced in countries of similar political complexion in the Soviet Union. (In fact, a tractor is not of much use in a flooded rice paddy: it is still possible today that the only one of these metallic beasts that you will see during this itinerary may be in the pagoda at the end, on 200 VNĐ bills, “money for the dead” now worth too little to be of much interest to the living). During this period, carpentry, not so very prevalent beforehand in Đồng Kỵ, developed greatly within the agricultural co-operative. There was a precious contribution of know-how from the artists-woodcarvers of the established neighbouring craft villages, long specialised in their art, such as:

• Phù Khê Thýợng (religious items and roof carvings);
• Kim Thiều (statues);
• Thiết Ứng (statues of Buddha, phoenixes and turtles).

29Other co-operatives were rapidly created in these three villages. Artisans also began to make things out of ivory and buffalo horn (a modest link with the past?). Orders started rolling in, particularly from Eastern European countries (fellow travellers towards a better world). Everything was managed by state agencies, which supplied the raw materials, sought out new markets, exported the goods and (sometimes) paid salaries. Then, in 1984 (a year that got plenty of people thinking), a fresh government directive allowed production outside the co-operative, with the proviso that it should still be in a collective context… State control of the means of production slackened a little, artisans started working at home again.

30While all this was going on, in the post-revolutionary war period, a new craft came into being in Đồng Kỵ, invented by former buffalo traders seeking to invest their idle capital and put it to work to make more: fine furniture-making. In fact, these traders, making use of their old networks of contacts, crisscrossed the Delta in search of antique Vietnamese, Chinese and even French furniture, took it apart and copied it. To begin with, they had little idea how to do this, but thanks to the employment of specialised (well-paid) artisans, who were hired to train the children and apprentices of the Đồng Kỵ bosses, the craft began to deliver up its secrets…

Space: the final frontier

31With a density of residential population far above that of the centrally located traditional neighbourhoods in Hà Nội (more than 300 people per hectare here), plus the carpentry workshops and a need to stock timber (which takes up a lot of room) and furniture in all stages of production, Ðồng Kỵ suffers badly from a lack of space that continues to become more acute–and also from an environment that is deteriorating.

32The artisans of Đồng Kỵ must find solutions to these issues, but unfortunately, such solutions often generate fresh problems:

33• An industrial park (IP) has been created at the entrance to the village to increase production space, enable the mechanisation of processes, resolve the poor access to businesses far from the roads and reduce environmental problems, particularly those affecting public health (noise, harmful substances and overcrowding). However, little heed is given to zoning (often, families and workers are housed here and production continues as before in the centre of the village), some craftspeople have formalised their status solely to facilitate their access to the IP and only 30% of those requesting a plot of land actually received one… In addition, farmers expropriated to clear the site of the IP sometimes try to claim their land back and go and make representations in Hà Nội.

34• Ponds and canals have, in an informal manner, been filled in with rubbish and bags of stones to reclaim land and then be able to build on it or to establish storage areas. But this practice reduces the efficiency of water drainage (the water is quite polluted here with chemicals used to stain and varnish the pieces of furniture) and increases the risk of flooding during the monsoon season.

35• Some artisans buy plots of land in nearby villages, often covered with water or liable to flooding, and also fill them in. This practice has the negative effect of sending the price of real estate sky high all round Đồng Kỵ and, once again, of impeding efficient water drainage.

36• Other homeowners in Đồng Kỵ destroy their old village houses (often beautiful, to our tourist eyes) in order to build several cement houses there, in the Hà Nội style (distinctly less beautiful, to the same eyes). You have probably already noticed these houses (the “strip” houses), built along similar lines to a compact castle in the Middle Ages, with a little drawbridge (for motorbikes), a folding portcullis (against burglars) and sometimes even a moat (in the form of sewers, a pond or flooded paddy fields). They nearly all have the silhouette of a matchbox placed on one end (although in this way they do create plenty of living space on the upper floors). In addition, the façade has been covered with pastel-coloured (or even fluorescent) paint, while leaving the other cement walls “au naturel”. These three walls are also blind: if you are expecting others to come and build their houses of an identical format (or even with additional storeys) up close and personal only a few centimetres distant from yours, what’s the point of fitting French windows into the other walls?

37Let us return to space management… All these makeshift solutions and individual, poorly coordinated strategies from the richer artisans only provide partial and imperfect answers to the problems. The absence of any proper, integrated municipal planning is a growing source of worry: in addition to environmental damage, the insufficient road network is saturated and there is a risk of tensions between villages and between artisans and expropriated farmers, tensions that in the long term could also jeopardise productive cohesion within the cluster.

THE (NEW) CRAFT

38For a long time, this activity was not a particularly lucrative one: limited by the difficulty (at that time) in obtaining wood and the small size of the market, patience and deep pockets were needed by the handful of families in Đồng Kỵ that were the first to convert to this new craft. One craftsman tells of having paid a tidy sum simply for the right to take photographs of a set of pieces of fine antique French furniture, which he then copied from his photos!

39The craft began to develop after the end of the American War (1975), but it was not until the end of the 1980s with the advent of Đổi Mới (the Vietnamese Perestroïka) that it really took off. From then on, Đồng Kỵ became a permanent centre of craft activity (and a very large timber market), surrounded by satellite villages, which supplied a workforce, some of it well-qualified, thanks to its ancestral skill in carpentry and sculpture.

40The particularity and the force of Đồng Kỵ’s converted bosses was to channel these skills, previously limited to a religious vocation, into a new, secular, diversified craft, with multiple, even global markets. The craft expanded, became more organised and specialised: around Đồng Kỵ, a whole network of connections and supplies of labour, materials and services was set up with the neighbouring villages and others, sometimes much more distant.

41In a graphic entitled “Connections between the crafts specialised in wooden furniture” (Fanchette S. & Nguyễn Xuân Hoản, 2009), even if it looks rather like the Napoleonic battle diagrams in old history books, one can observe the complex and simultaneous movements in all directions, the balance of power (economic, not military here) and the delicate hierarchy of activities and skills woven around Đồng Kỵ. Some artisans from the surrounding area work in the workshops of this village. Many of them travel to and fro daily, others come from too far away and must find lodgings in dormitories, like the mother-of-pearl inlayers from the specialised villages of Hà Tây (see Itinerary n^o6) as well as the workers who travel down from Thái Nguyên Province. Many craftspeople remain at home however, doing subcontracted work, thus taking up less precious space in Đồng Kỵ, minimising overheads for the owners of large workshops and very often only carrying out one very isolated part of making a piece of furniture.

42You will see people in the villages round Đồng Kỵ who, for example, only make chair legs for a living. In the manner preached by Adam Smith (or F. W. Taylor), they can work efficiently, with a minimum of wasted time, energy or materials, but one cannot help but notice that they are trapped in a relationship of dependence with the person who puts the work out to contract (never mind the whims of the market), from which they cannot easily escape.

THINGS TO SEE

43• Go and take a quick look at one of the modern shops with a showroom in what is supposed to be the industrial park along the main road at the entrance to the village, in order to see a good sample of what people make here.

44• Explore the old centre of Ðồng Kỵ, very dense, with markets like the one for mother-of-pearl (organised by the inlayers who hail from Hà Tây) and the labour market (temporary workers – mostly women).

45Concerning architectural heritage in Đồng Kỵ, leaving rapidly to one side the shiny new houses of Dongkinese nouveaux-riches, there are some very nice things to see here:

46• The very famous đình. This communal house is a handsome building, but it was the firecracker competition, held just after Tết (the lunar new year), that established the national renown of Đồng Kỵ, long before fine furniture appeared in the front room. Not so much a proto-Woodstock amid the water hyacinths as a grudge match between volatile explosive experts, competing Donkinese families used to prepare at home, in great secret, huge firecrackers stuffed with gunpowder (in other words: bombs). The day of the competition, they proudly unveiled them on the forecourt of the đình, sometimes obliged to demolish and rebuild a wall of a house in order to get the rocket out of its hiding place! The firecrackers were judged not only according to their size but also by the quality of their subsequent explosion. One year, a firecracker blast even destroyed part of the roof of the đình… This practice commemorated the return from battle of General Thiên Cýõng, who had helped one of the Hùng kings (#6) to oust the n^th wave of Chinese soldiers to swoop down upon the Delta. In 1994 however, all this was sent for a spin by the government outlawing the production and detonation of firecrackers, at last deemed too dangerous. This ban put an end to a very popular custom – and (as we will see later) disrupted the activities of several craft villages, including some on this same itinerary that produced the paper for the firecrackers. Đồng Kỵ has nonetheless maintained its festival – and its tradition (carving, since the ban, firecrackers out of wood: a curious busman’s holiday for these slaves to the wood chisel!). The firecracker competition still takes places therefore, starting on the 4^th day of the 1^st lunar month (the day after Tết ends). The fun used to last for 20 days; today, it only lasts for three…

47• Several other ceremonies and games take place at the same time as the firecracker competition. Among these, let us mention a relatively explicit fertility rite. A farmer with children of both sexes (namely: of good breeding stock) is chosen to brandish objects representing the male genitalia (made of wood) and the female ones (made of mo cau, the fibre of the areca nut). Three times, he performs a dance while simulating carnal congress with these two objects. When it’s all over, he throws the exhausted organs into the crowd for lucky villagers to catch. To find out what happens next, you’ll have to go there yourself.

48• Explore a couple of (craft) villages in the vicinity of Đồng Kỵ (see the list at the beginning of this itinerary). Observe artisans doing subcontracted work.

49• Notice the impressive quantity and variety of wood stocked in Đồng Kỵ and its environs. Amazing but true, the biggest timber market in all of northern Vietnam is here, in this very village! Reserves of suitable wood have almost been exhausted in Vietnam, so it is bought from countries as distant as Indonesia and Burma; it is also resold here in Đồng Kỵ. (Unfortunately, this is another downside to this hive of activity working at full capacity: the difficulty of controlling the exact origin of the wood, the conditions under which it has been cut and any potential environmental damage caused by its removal. For example, Laos has been pillaged for its precious wood (Cambodia as well) and it is almost exclusively communities of mountain dwellers, already vulnerable to environmental disruption, who pay the price, without benefiting financially from this trade).

A walk through Đồng Kỵ

50Once past the industrial and commercial area, you enter into an older part of the village. The road lined with businesses, then with the big timber market (to the right) gives way to one of the main arteries of the cluster of villages. Choked with traffic at rush hours, it is an amazing spectacle of to-ing and fro-ing, made up of horse-drawn carts, motorbikes, bicycles, and the small vans that carry jumbled piles of furniture of phenomenal sizes: acrobats of a kind, these porters and couriers have become essential participants in the cluster’s business activity. It is possible to escape the ambient chaos by taking one of the bigger streets to the right a little before the river. The entrance is marked by a very striking gate, marking the limits of Xóm Bắng, one of the village’s hamlets.

51This lane leads to a junction where a small miếu (temple) stands opposite a slight rise in the ground where there was once a well. A hairdresser sporadically plies his trade here. Take the alley on the right and after a few metres, you will come upon the tiny market for everyday items. A small miếu dedicated to the worship of the spirit of the earth seems to protect the inhabitants of the neighbourhood. Follow the alley to the left that leads to a very attractive nhà thờ họ (to the left), where the Dýõng lineage, the biggest family in the village, meets for family festivals and to worship their ancestors. In this very densely populated place, maintaining such a building featuring a courtyard with a pond and lined with well-tended bonsais is quite an achievement.

52A little further, to the left, once you have gone round the nhà thờ họ, a very beautiful gate opens onto a group of elegantly built traditional houses, lost in the middle of gardens, some of which serve as carpentry workshops. Once you are back in front of the nhà thờ họ Dýõng, carry straight on. You will pass in front of the former cultural centre nhà vãn hóa, converted into an infant school. At the junction of alleyways, the nhà thờ họ of the Vũ family stands opposite. A plainer construction, it nonetheless marks the territory of another lineage, in this very ancient and very populous village (more than 13,000 inhabitants!).

53Carrying straight on, the road bends round to the left. Several workshops are installed in the tiny courtyards of some ancient houses. It is possible to visit them, armed with a few smiles! The second blind alley to the right leads to the workshop of Mrs. Nhu who, in this traditional house more than 200 years old, puts to work a tightly-packed team of women who sand down, varnish and assemble very fine furniture inlaid with mother-of-pearl. Carrying on further down the street, keep going until you come to the đình by passing through a very striking gate that marks the entrance to Xóm Đình. Next to this gate, a compact miếu is used to worship the spirit of the earth that protects the inhabitants of this hamlet.

54Early birds can take part in, or at least attend, an open-air session of tai chi in the courtyard of the đình… at five o’clock in the morning!

Ðồng Kỵ - Phù Khê

A walk through Phù Khê

55Once you have gone over the bridge that crosses the little Ngũ Huyện Khê River and marks the limit between the villages of Ðồng Kỵ and Phù Khê, on the left you can see a fresh area of workshops, mostly occupied by craftspeople from Đồng Kỵ. To the right, partially flooded paddy fields will be used as an industrial park to relocate production from the village’s core, once land problems have been sorted out. It is possible to visit a small pagoda, Chùa Vĩnh Lợi, on the roadside, after the first junction. Notice the presence of a banyan tree, symbol of Vietnam’s 3,000-year-old society (with its intriguing adventive roots, home to benevolent spirits, unlike the kapok tree, which houses only malevolent ghosts, terrifying small children…) and admire the charming little pond in front of the pagoda.

56Take the street to the right that leads to the village square. On the right-hand side of the square, first there is the small đình, recently restored, which stands opposite a vast stretch of water. Next door, you’ll see the nhà thờ họ of the Lê family. The road that cuts through the village is lined with many old buildings, symbolising the age, affluence and expertise of this village of sculptors, whose origins date back more than a thousand years to the Lý Dynasty. The most talented artisans participated in the construction of the most renowned pagodas (Dâu and Đam Pagodas) as well as the đình in Đình Bảng, which you have already had the chance to admire. Their speciality: carving animals, particularly dragons, one of the four sacred mythical animals.

57As you pass the marketplace (on your left), opposite you is a small miếu that houses the hamlet’s spirit of the earth and where a resting place has been set aside for villagers. On either side, the street gives onto blind alleys, where the sound of woodcutting machines and circular saws and suchlike reminds us of the vitality of this village with its rich architectural heritage. Try to lose yourself in these alleyways where you can observe the extreme division of labour between workshops: some produce only chair legs, while others busy themselves with tabletops inlaid with mother-of-pearl. Anyone for Lego?

58Many of the workshops to the left of the main road are recent and have been built over former ponds that have been filled in. The conquest of space has gone hand-in-hand with the development of this village, boldly reclaiming land that no one has dared reclaim before, as proximity with Đồng Kỵ has galvanised this community. Further on, to the right, the modest nhà thờ họ of the Nguyễn family. Then to the left, another pocket đình, preceded by a stretch of water. Opening out onto paddy fields as far as the eye can see, this is a very beautiful building and the delicate, lacquered sculptures showcase the talent of the village’s artisans. If you are lucky enough to find the đình’s gatekeeper, he can open it up for you, apart from on days set aside for ancestor worship (the 1^st and 15^th days of the lunar month). It is said that during the war against the French, this communal house served as a hiding-place for the Việt Minh (above a suspended ceiling hung from the main rafters). It was then destroyed by the villagers for fear that the French garrison, stationed in the nearby town of Đông Anh, would make it its headquarters. It was rebuilt to identical specifications in 2002, thanks to contributions from villagers and relying upon the memory of village elders to keep the reproduction faithful!

59If you carry straight on, you come to the huge, shiny new pagoda of Phù Khê Thýợng, Chùa Ông Hồng An, rebuilt in 2006. The original became collateral damage during the war. A massive Buddha of over 15 metric tons watches over the faithful. This pagoda was once very famous in the region.

DÝÕNG Ổ, CHÂM KHÊ AND THE PAPER PRODUCING VILLAGES

GETTING THERE

60Go back to National Highway n^o1 and turn left, heading towards the provincial capital, Bắc Ninh. At km 24, you go through the town of Lim, an administrative centre where the Lim Quan họ Festival takes place (see p. 89). About another kilometre further on, you will reach the village of Xuân Ố. The village’s name is marked on shop signs. On your left, a road goes into the commune of Phong Khê to which Dýõng Ổ belongs. If you come to a motorway bridge crossing over the main road and you see a no-entry sign on the left-hand side of the road, which at this point becomes a dual carriageway, this means you’ve gone too far. Track back about 600 metres and you’ll find the first entrance to the village of Dýõng Ổ. Cross the railway line (the same one you went over to get to Đồng Kỵ) – and welcome to Paperland!

THE CONTEXT

61Dýõng Ổ is a traditional craft village, producing various kinds of dó paper, made from the fibres of the rhamnoneuron, a tree found in the mountainous provinces that overlook the Delta. This activity has been practised for several hundred years. It supplanted the production of Býởi and Yên Thái villages, located on the shores of West Lake (the big lake in Hà Nội: see Part 1 p. 28), now absorbed by the capital. Dýõng Ổ supplied the villages of the Upper Delta via specialised markets for paper of various qualities: for writing royal edicts, for votive paper (Làng Cót), for woodblock prints (Ðông Hồ), for making firecrackers (Bình Ðà), or later during the revolution, for printing tracts and revolutionary newspapers. The collectivist era saw the beginnings of modernisation and participation in the village’s war effort through craft co-operatives, then production groups (see Part 1 p. 21).

62Since economic liberalisation, production of dó paper has declined in favour of mechanical production of printing paper or toilet rolls. Dýõng Ổ artisans have better managed their diversification of production than those of other villages. In 1994, the government outlawed the production of firecrackers and precipitated the decline of a centuries-old form of papermaking. However, the artisans of this dynamic village refused to admit defeat. They began the process of modernisation and mechanisation of their activity and widened their range of products (toilet rolls, wrapping paper, printing paper and to a lesser degree, votive paper). In 2003, Phong Khê Commune had 125 industrial production lines with a capacity of from 300 to 2,000 metric tons per year. This process did not take place without more collateral damage: you will see this for yourself when you stroll through the village and above all, along the banks of what used to be the backbone of the village, the Ngũ Huyện Khê River. However, there are still a few artisans making dó paper, and others producing paper to make votive offerings. This small amount of handcrafted paper produced here is sold mostly to artists.

63There are three other villages close by in this papermaking cluster: follow the bank of the Ngũ Huyện Khê River towards the north-east from Dýõng Ổ and you will end up in Ðào Xá. Continuing further north, you will come to Châm Khê. In this village, paper production is much less mechanised than in Dýõng Ổ. There are more producers of giấy dó (dó paper) and paper for making votive offerings.

Barking up the right tree

64The first challenge for dó papermakers is to obtain the bark of this tree, the vital raw material. Bark from the paper mulberry tree is also used to a certain degree (but not much is said about this). It is hard to find supplies of dó bark these days: as there are fewer and fewer buyers, dó tree growers are becoming thin on the ground and prices are very high. Mountaindwellers don’t plant many of them; they are only found now in Lào Cai and Yên Bái Provinces, where the bark is harvested in September and October. Those who wish to make paper regularly must hoard supplies for the whole year.

65On the other hand, papermaking is also seasonal: production is halted during the monsoon (June, July, August), as it is too hot – and in addition, the paper will no longer dry out. Once one has found some bark, it must be prepared: what follows is the recipe for making dó paper as it was done a century ago in a village on the banks of West Lake. With one difference (the amount of various chemicals and recycled paper being discreetly added to the pulp), the last papermakers of Dýõng Ổ and Châm Khê continue to do things exactly the way their ancestors did.

66Making dó paper in the village of Yên Thái in the traditional way begins with the delivery of bundles of sticks that are put to soak or ret in the Tô Lịch River, for between one and three days. The bark is given a rough clean, by removing knots and cutting it into pieces and then it is placed into tanks where it soaks in a mixture of lime and water for 24 hours. Then follows the phase where the bark is steamed in ovens dug into the ground (for between eight and ten hours, according to Dard Hunter) or in a bain-marie (Claverie F. indicates three to four days). The bark is then placed in big baskets made of woven bamboo and washed in clean water. Women with knives separate the light-coloured part of the bark that will give the best-quality paper from the darker part, used for lesser-quality products. Having been soaked once more, then washed and drained, men crush the bark by hand in stone mortars until it becomes a coarse pulp. Diluted and homogenised in a vat, thickened with mò wood shavings, the pulp is screened in thin layers with the help of a mould made from a wooden frame and a fine bamboo latticework screen, called a liềm xeo. The sheets of paper are piled onto a tray of 500 or 1,000 pieces. A press is used to gently squeeze the water out of this pile of fresh sheets and then the drying phase proper begins, either outside or using an oven, the sheets being placed around its exterior. It only remains to put the uncut sheets into bundles for sale.

A paper trail through Dýõng Ổ (Phong Khê)

67An introductory caveat: this village is neither bucolic, nor attractive, nor charming… Mechanised paper production has invaded all the nooks and crannies of local life, has polluted the watercourses and occupied both public and private space. The scale of activity and its speed of growth and change have spelled the end of environmental control by the lineages and local authorities. In this deltaic society perpetually confronted with the risk of floods, traditional institutions had been established to manage this risk. The integrated system of production known as VAC (Výờn, Ao, Chuồng: garden, pond, herd) made it possible to recycle some organic waste. The road network was planned in parallel lines to ease evacuation of water from the main street into the perpendicular secondary arteries and towards the paddy fields and ponds that constituted a network throughout the village, thus enabling the recycling of nutrients for fish farming. Village charters, which regulated all aspects of village life, in this manner organised waste management and maintenance of public thoroughfares.

68You will soon see the breakdown of this ancient and outdated system. There is paper EVERYWHERE. By paper, we mean not only paper for recycling, which is the prime raw material used by village artisans, but also the finished products: huge stacks of wrapping paper that block the roads in the industrial park, mountains of loo rolls in front of shops… In the first case, that of the paper for recycling, we will leave you the task of measuring the extent to which it has occupied all available space, and the variety of this matter to which we, in the West, to promote it once it is recycled, apply the onerous label of “green” merchandise.

69However, we will also get you to visit addresses that offer a more traditional experience. Here you will meet the Last of the (Paper) Mohicans, who struggle against all odds to pursue their art, for very modest profits: the makers of giấy dó (often wrongly called rice-paper). In the spring of 2008, there remained four workshops active in Dýõng Ổ and about ten in Châm Khê. We will lead you to the least industrialised part of the village (even though the environs of the railway lines, more recently developed, give the opposite impression) and we’ll leave you to judge, at the end of the tour, the transformation in the nature of these villages’ activity, by finishing up in the industrial park, located to the north-east.

70As soon as you cross the railway line, a small miều marks the village limits. Take the recently built main street: the heart of the old village is further on, towards the Ngũ Huyện Khê River. Before you get to the market, you will see on your left a company specialised in sorting paper thrown away by the Bãi Bằng paper mill. This high quality paper is obtained from notebooks made with cellulose pulp. A forest of small hands plunged into these snowy mountains of paper strips sorts through this quality raw material: they remove bits of sticky tape, staples, coloured covers. Sorting keeps a large workforce busy, predominantly female and little trained (the elderly, children…), while the men busy themselves with the machines and industrial activities. A company with about 15 employees can sort up to five metric tons of paper a week.

71The village’s main street is lined with new houses, whose courtyards are invaded by… paper. Only when you enter the maze of small streets in the old core of the village can you see little houses with courtyards full of flowers, which constitute the charm of these Delta villages.

72Once you get to the market, turn left. A small temple, điếm, serves as a place of worship for the inhabitants of this xóm. Through a crack between the doors, one can see, here and there, elderly people busy sorting piles of paper strips. In spite of mechanisation, the activity works its way into every corner of the village and into the intimacy of houses, mostly deserted since mechanised production was forced to relocate into the industrial parks of the commune or along the river.

Phong Khê

73In the first alley on the right is the house of Mr. Phạm Văn Tâm, whose wife is one of four dó papermakers. You can request a visit of her workshop and buy a few sheets of paper. Each workshop carries out the whole production process, so it is often possible to see every stage of papermaking. In the vats in the courtyard, the dó bark is put to soak, while to one side women clean the bark, and it is possible to see presses, strainers, mortars and other papermaking instruments. The screening of the pulp in the mould is really the most impressive stage. In her living room, stuffed full with piles of paper of various sizes, Mr. Phạm Văn Tâm's wife peels off a dry sheet and inspects its quality. She produces 100 kilos of paper a month, of different qualities, or about 20,000 sheets. She prepares orders for clients, most of them regular ones. The levels of quality depend on the proportion of pulp in the mixture, on the quality of the bark and on the thickness of the paper: giấy dýõng is thicker than giấy dó. In some cases, recycled paper is mixed with bark pulp.

74To get to Mr. Ngô Văn Hiến’s workshop, retrace your steps. At the end of the alleyway, turn right (with the market on your left) and continue a few metres further. His workshop is on the right. When we visited, his wife, Mrs. Týõi, was screening dó pulp in a tank with the help of the khuôn (mould). She passes the mould, on which there is a latticework of thin bamboo strips (mành), through the tank of water (tàu xeo) mixed with pulp and she removes the sheet to put it on a pile of them, then repeats this movement over and over again: 800 times a day. From time to time, she gives the water in the tank a good stir with a stick to mix the pulp in well and obtain a smooth liquid. This traditional and manual craft, an exhausting one, because you have to stay standing up the whole time, with your hands in the water, has been carried out by women in this village for generations.

75If you wish to assess the impact on the environment of this highly mechanised activity, when you get back to the market, turn left and go straight on down to the river (see map, p. 85). Walk along the river between Dýõng Ổ and Châm Khê: you will see a good sample of more mechanised production, doubtless witness production lines in operation (the biggest ones keep going all night) and workers preparing recycled paper, wrapping toilet rolls, etc. You will see that, as in Đồng Kỵ, space is lacking here, and the riverbanks, despite being the site of the đình and the majestic wharf, are polluted with used paper pulp. It is also difficult to ignore the pollution of the waterway: this industry requires large amounts of water and generates a lot of waste (which often ends up in the river), as well as using toxic chemical products.

76If you wish to carry on visiting giấy dó producers, go back to the market and follow the street leading off to the left. This street leads to the new industrial park, cutting right through the heart of the village. This street is a rather unprepossessing concrete strip, but the side roads lead to little houses nestling at the ends of alleyways. Here and there, unused tanks can be seen in courtyards where dó bark was once soaked. In the last alley on the left before coming to a small điếm (temple) is the house of Mr. Ngô Đức Điều, a respected and elderly artisan who has in his keeping a document dating from 1435 mentioning papermaking in the village. He continues to make paper the traditional way, but his sons have switched to mechanised production in the industrial park.

77Then, before leaving the old village, on the right, in an old house, a woman makes giấy dó with a mixture of recycled paper and dó. This poor-quality dó paper is used by the goldbeaters of Kiêu Kỵ, a village near Bát Tràng (the famous pottery village on the bank of the Red River). Kiêu Kỵ and its goldbeaters are described in detail in Itinerary n^o2. This woman (like two others in a more remote hamlet of the cluster) buys paper for recycling, has it pulped in another workshop, then mixes it in water with dó bark. She makes 1,000 sheets a day and, for 100 sheets, she only asks 20,000 VNÐ! She can’t receive many sheets of gold leaf in exchange for sheets of paper Then, if you wish to visit Châm Khê, take the street that goes left at the crossroads. Go past the communal People’s Committee. Then go into Ðào Xá, a village of papermakers, cut into two by the motorway bridge that leads to Nội Bài Airport. After a kilometre or so, you come to Châm Khê. Recycled paper is much used in making the village’s specialities: votive offerings and fans. For example, look for workshops that make ‘counterfeit’ 100 dollar or 50,000 VNĐ bills, burnt by the buyer in order to ‘pass them on’ to the dead so that they can make ends meet in the hereafter. Would the difficulties of other worlds be similiar to those of ours?

78If you decide against a detour via Châm Khê, at the crossroads, carry straight on. To the right is a well, called the fairy’s well, giếng tiên. It was restored and enlarged in 2004. Originally, it served to slake the neighbourhood’s collective thirst, now it is only for decoration. On the side of the well, there is a small shrine for ancestor worship.

79Then, in the small, informal industrial park to the left of this very busy and noisy street, look for Mrs. Ngô Thị Thu who, as well as making wrapping and other sorts of paper industrially, produces 1,000 sheets of high quality dó paper a day. She states that she does it “for pleasure” and claims that it is no longer possible to live from this craft. Once again, it is possible to obtain supplies of high quality paper here, notably sheets in bigger sizes.

80Finally, if you’re not afraid of chlorine fumes and industrial noise, we recommend that you have a quick look around the large industrial park, at the end of the street on the left, where most of the big companies are to be found. It is astonishing to see the numerous and spacious villas, painted pink, green or yellow, which have been built in this heavily polluted environment.

LIM HILL AND PHẬT TÍCH PAGODA

81On the road back to Hà Nội, five kilometres after the town of Bắc Ninh (six before the village of Từ Sõn) on your left, take a moment to discover the charms of Lim Hill (in the town of Lim), to the left after the railway station. On this hill, also called Mount Hồng Vân, is held Lim Festival. This is a celebration of spring through quan họ music (see box p. 89), songs typical of Bắc Ninh Province, which is held on the 13^th day of the 1^st lunar month.

82If you go at the time of the Festival, you will see young singers sing to each other, positioned around the hill, in the neighbouring meadows or on boats tethered in the Tiêu Týõng River below. The songs can last all night, and become particularly intense when the sun reappears above the horizon. The singers often eat small, pickled, yellow-green fruit with restorative powers (trám tráng: Canarium album Rausch or Chinese white olives) and sometimes put salt into their mouths in order to preserve their voices during a long night of warbling.

83It is also an occasion to pay homage to Hiếu Trung, the founder of the quan họ village and at the same time, visitors can watch weaving competitions (during which the candidates sing quan họ) and take part in games, swinging contests, wrestling, etc.

84If you are not lucky enough to see the festival, we recommend Lim Hill as a place for a picnic: located between the two clusters of craft villages, it’s a very pleasant spot (with trees under which to sit in the shade), if you are suitably organised and the weather is good enough.

THE RETURN OF THE MUMMY

85Some kilometres further on (about eight), on the road that leads from the turning at Lim towards the Đuống River, is Phật Tích Pagoda (with the remains of the original Buddhist pagoda, built around the 7th-8th century) on Lạn Kha Hill (also known as Phật Tích). It was restored and enlarged during the Lý Dynasty and on several subsequent occasions. Large lacquered and gilded statues can be seen there. According to Nguyễn Vinh Phúc (2001), there is a seated statue that is the mummified and lacquered corpse of a monk, dating from the 17^th century. This was once quite a common practice in Vietnam and other pagodas contain similarly sombre treasures (see box in Itinerary n^o5 p. 217 and also Itinerary n^o8 p.271).

86The original name of the hill that is home to this pagoda – Lạn Kha – comes from a story that could have come straight out of Grimm’s fairy tales Lạn Kha means rotten axe and derives from an adventure in the life of a woodcutter called Výõng Chất. One day, he climbed the hill to chop some wood and chanced upon two old men playing chess (Chinese chess, of course). Leaning his axe against a rock, the young man lingered to watch the action. At the end, the two players flew directly up into the heavens: they were immortals. Výõng Chất tried to carry on with his work, but the handle of the axe had rotted away: whole centuries had passed during the game…

Another strange story for the road back to Hà Nội

87Heading home towards Lim, the road goes back over Mount Bát Vạn (actually a vague hillock 150 metres high: any blip on the deltaic horizon gets people waxing lyrical…). Bát Vạn here signifies 80,000 and refers to an identical number of tiny terracotta towers (only 20 cm high) that are said to be buried at this site. Legend has it that in the 9^th century, a Chinese administrator (the prototype of the wicked coloniser) named Kao-Pien had these strange things buried here in order to enable him to put a curse on this prosperous corner of the Vietnamese countryside. This ancient superstition involves special rites and the burial of objects, usually made of copper or iron (but terracotta clearly gave a cheaper curse for your kopek). We have located the position of only 78,694 of these little Sino-Vietnamese grisgris, so if the sun is not already beginning to set into the paddy fields when you pass by, please feel free to check the authenticity of this strange story – and of course, make sure you let us know.

A lover’s discourse: fragments

88Quan họ is a traditional form of singing closely associated with Bắc Ninh Province, also practised in several neighbouring provinces, that first appeared in around the 13^th century. It takes the form of love duets between men and women and between inhabitants of different villages, singing alternately a cappella, drawing on a rich traditional repertoire, obeying strict musical rules, but leaving ample room for improvised lyrics.

89This musical discipline, considered a high point in the Delta’s heritage of popular arts, is still practised in about 50 villages found in the former region of Kinh Bắc. Experienced singers look out in their own villages for girls and boys on the verge of adolescence who have singing voices that may go together well, then put them into pairs for vocal and musical training. A singing couple, thus united, is rarely separated, yet it is strictly forbidden for these young people to marry one another. Indeed, songs often deal with the wistful subject of unattainable love.

90In times past, in a society where Confucian values severely limited any contact between the sexes outside the family, quan họ constituted a safety valve and an outlet for emotions not easily expressed elsewhere, safely couched in social approbation and an extremely codified structure, despite offering significant freedom for flights of improvised fancy.

91With just such a chaste but intense partnership understanding, at once strong and flexible, if one were also to teach these young singers to play bridge as partners (bridge being better suited to the conditions in the Delta than ice dancing, we contend), Vietnam would soon be challenging for the world title…