Culture and Arts Dong Ho Paiting Folk Arts

You may have seen them before. They adorn the walls of Vietnamese restaurants everywhere in the world, there may be one hiding by the cash register at the neighborhood Vietnamese business, your Vietnamese friends hang them up as Lunar New Year approaches. In Vietnam, production of these folk paintings peaks right before Tet as merchants stock up in anticipation of heavy customer demand. These paintings are traditionally used to decorate homes for the New Year festival.

We have purchased many of these prints before in the local stores and markets in Hanoi and have often wanted to go visit the village they are made in. We set out one morning with a rented car and driver, and some simple directions.

The Road to Dong Ho

The village of Dong Ho is in Ha Bac, the province just north of Hanoi. We quickly leave the city and are soon traveling in the countryside with beautiful rural scenery rolling by. The 50-kilometer ride should take about one and a half-hours, if you know where you're going. We got pretty close with our simple directions. Then, we started doing what people everywhere in Vietnam do, we stopped every ten minutes or so and asked for directions. A farmer with his water buffalo directed us toward the first important landmark--a dike. We drove on the dike for a while before we ran into three school children who thought maybe we should have gone the other way. A few short stops for directions later, we spotted a village. This must be it. The only problem is how to get off the dike and head toward the village. After a few minutes of driving without seeing a road that would take us where we wanted to go, our driver exhibited another great national trait--pragmatism. When he spotted a flat area, we just drove off the dike, onto the embankment and made a beeline toward the village. Soon we found a dirt trail and were heading for Dong Ho--we hoped. As we got closer, it looked like a cluster of about fifty or so one-story houses with one large one, obviously of recent construction. We headed for the large one, a two-story building with a gated courtyard. The gate sported a sign proudly welcoming us to the place where Dong Ho paintings are made. We had arrived.

The Village

The occupants are busy opening the gate and waving us in. (They heard us coming. Not many cars make it to Dong Ho.) The whole place is buzzing, making prints. A batch is drying in the sun; several are being painted in sequence with different colors, in the shade and inside the open-air building.

We got out of the car and stood for a minute to take it all in. We had expected a village in the middle of nowhere where artisans have been practicing the craft of making prints since the 17th century. Instead, we just parked our car in the shade of the gated courtyard, walked toward the new building and were welcomed by a man who was obviously the owner and invited to come into his showroom.

After a nice chat and many cups of tea, the owner, master artisan Nguyen Dang Che, offered to take us around his complex, to watch the process of print making the Dong Ho way.

The Print Making Process

The prints are made by brushing paint made of local material onto carved wood blocks, then pressing the blocks on paper. The print is left to dry after each color is applied before another color is added. Three to five colors are used to make each print.

The Wood Blocks

The wooden blocks are made from the thi tree, a soft fibrous wood. The block is used as a printing plate, with one block for each color, print and size. A big shelf in the printing room holds hundreds of wood blocks. The master shows us several blocks that have been in his family for over 200 years. Wood block carving is an art handed down within the family by the master to his children. This master's family has been making prints for many generations. He proudly points to his three sons and several daughters who are busy working, learning the craft from him and carrying on the family tradition.

The Paper

The prints are all done on traditional giay gio paper made from the bark fiber of the do tree. This tree grows in the northwestern part of the country. The sheath is stripped off the tree trunk and soaked in a pond for a month. It is then dipped in limewater for two weeks, followed by a wash. After ten days or so the pulp is poured into frames which are stacked for several more days. Then the stacks are arranged on a wall to dry, and pressed smooth with a stone mortar.

The paper is coated with a pulverized powder made from shellfish found in the Hai Phong area. The shellfish is brought to the village and coated with mud for two years. The entire mixture is then ground up by stone mortar and put into a water tank to be filtered and pressed into balls that weigh about a kilo and they are left to dry on the walls or floors. They are then used as needed and mixed with glue. This mixture is called diep powder.

The Brush

The prints are painted with a beautiful brush made of spruce. The thet brushes are made from dried spruce leaves bound together. These brushes are made in a village not far away and come in various sizes. The leaves are pounded with salt water and a hammer to make the brush tip soft enough and are bound together and flattened at the top.

The Paint

The folk art simplicity has strong and simple contours with bright colors that are made from dried bamboo leaves, the local fruits, flowers and leaves. The paint is mixed in large earthenware pots. The colors are mixed by hand and each artisan has his or her own formula. The red paint is made from soi son, a soft stone that is found in the region. The blue paint is made from indigo leaves found in the minority areas. Both of these paints must be soaked in an earthenware pot for a couple of years and strained of all impurities.

Yellow paint usually comes from the sophora tree whose flowers are as small as rice kernels. The flowers are roasted in a pan until they turn brownish-yellow. When water is added and the mixture is boiled, the yellow color appears. The liquid is filtered and the pulp thrown away. The violet color comes from the mong toi fruit. Black paint comes from the bamboo tree. When the bamboo trees shed their leaves, they are burned to a cinder, then sprinkled with water and put in a glazed clay jar half filled with water. After a year or more the water is strained and the black ink is ready for use after being mixed with glutinous rice glue.

Grinding glutinous rice into a fine powder and mixing it with water makes the rice glue. As the rice powder settles to the bottom, the clear water is skimmed off every day, to prevent the contents from fermenting.

The Stories

Each print tells a story of historical significance. The prints are used to carry on the cultural history of Vietnam, passed on at the welcoming of each Lunar New Year to younger generations through story telling. The themes of happiness, good luck, fertility, good fortune and prosperity are common. They celebrate the optimism for the coming New Year.

The New Dong Ho

There was a time when every family in the village was involved in printmaking. Today, modern Dong Ho village is quite diversified. The village is prosperous, agriculture is abundant in the rice and cornfields nearby and carpets are made from cornhusks. Only some of the families continue to produce Tet prints year-round, transporting them to Hanoi for sale to wholesalers who distribute them all over the country, keeping the tradition alive.

Written by Lisa Spivey from www.thingsasian.com

Culture and Arts Folk Arts Water Puppetry

Puppetry has a long and varied history that spans the globe, but only in Vietnam do puppets slice off each other's heads. Sure, Indonesia has the graceful Javanese shadow puppets and Japan the bunraku theater with black-clad ninja puppeteers. Europe offers the rambunctious Punch and Judy, not to mention fantastic nose-growing marionettes like Pinocchio. And in America Jim Henson created Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy and all the other members of the madcap Muppet gang. But amphibious Vietnamese water puppets beat all these diverse strands of puppetry.

To learn about this 800-year-old art form, which prominently features severed heads, there is no better book than Vietnamese Traditional Water Puppetry.The Gioi Publishers of Hanoi printed the second edition in 1996. Co-authored by Nguyen Huy Hong and Tran Trung Chinh, this 79-page softcover features numerous full-color photos of water puppetry-known as roi in Vietnamese. The authors cover the emergence of water puppetry guilds, the workings of water-based theater and the evolution of puppet characters and story lines. According to the authors, the goal of the book is to provide readers with insights into the historical development of water puppetry, its roots and roles in traditional Vietnamese society as well as the stories, language and songs featured in this enduring form of folk entertainment. To help western readers understand Vietnam-specific references, the book features excellent footnotes that clarify various points in the text.

Water puppetry has its origins in the Red River Delta of northern Vietnam. Many towns and villages in this area feature communal ponds, and it was in these public spaces that the art of water puppetry first developed in the eleventh century AD. As it evolved over the centuries from folk art to a more established art form, the simple theater stages of wood, bamboo and cloth developed into permanent structures. Due to their solid construction, some of these stages have survived until the present day. Vietnamese Traditional Water Puppetry features photographs and detailed architectural drawings of the two oldest stages still hosting puppetry performances in Vietnam: the Thay Pagoda stage (dating to the Le Dynasty, 1533-1708) and the Dong Temple stage (dating to 1775).

Puppeteers carve their puppets from the ubiquitous fig tree and waterproof them with resin from the lacquer tree. Puppets range in height from 12 to 40 inches (30 to 100 centimeters) and in weight from two to ten pounds (one to five kilograms). During performances, puppeteers control their puppets through a pole-and-string apparatus concealed by the pond water. This apparatus extends behind the stage curtain to the hidden puppeteers who stand in waist-deep water. In this way, explains the book, Vietnamese water puppetry differs from marionettes (control from above) or finger puppets (control from below).

Over time, as with many other kinds of artisans and craftsmen in Vietnam, puppet-makers and puppeteers banded together into guilds. These tended to be named after the members' home community, such as the Rach and Tay Ngoai Guilds. The book provides a complete list of the guilds, and also states that to become a member of such an organization, one must "be decently dressed," which rules out the average western tourist. In addition, one must place rice wine, betel rolls and areca nuts on the altar of the guild's founder. If accepted to the guild, a new member must drink a vermilion concoction that symbolizes human blood and then take an oath to keep the secrets of the guild. Failure to do so "is at the cost of the life of the father and that of three successive offspring."

Vietnamese Traditional Water Puppetry also summarizes the many plots of water puppetry performances. Characters can be heroic, legendary or mythic, but most are ordinary peasant characters living in an age-old village protected by clusters of giant bamboo. Plot lines tend to be action-oriented as it is beyond the ability of the puppets to convey emotional conflicts. A common plot device involves decapitation. For example, in a scene titled "Felling Banana Trees," a luckless character named Lieu Thang loses his head--literally. And in a vignette from the classical drama Son Hau, Khuong Linh Ta's head is severed and drifts away on the lake water. However, the resilient character chases after his own head, picks it up and carries it offstage. Such climactic moments often feature quantities of fireworks, including the fearsome phao rit, which explodes while diving underwater like a foraging duck. Along with the pyrotechnics comes a cacophony of drums, gongs, cymbals and bells, plus assorted enthusiastic noises from the audience.

Without a doubt the best place to watch water puppets lose their heads is during a traditional festival in a northern Vietnamese community with a puppetry guild. However, if you can't rustle up the cash for an air ticket to Hanoi, the book notes that recently Vietnamese puppeteers performed for audiences in France, Germany, Japan and Sweden. They have even moved in on Miss Piggy's home turf and toured cities in the United States.

Vietnamese Water Puppets / History of Water Puppets

The art of water puppetry, or mua roi nuoc, has roots that date back to the tenth century when it originated in the Red River Delta area of northern Vietnam. The farmers in the region celebrated festivals and harvests by performing this unique art form. Over the years, different villages have developed their own personal water puppet plays to mark certain battles or events.

Originally, the puppetry was always performed on a stage built in ponds. Wires were strung between stakes and as many as 200 scenes about village life and legends could be acted out. Today a show usually only incorporates about twenty five scenes. Some of the stages were permanent, but most were temporary wooden or bamboo structures in the shape of a temple which would be put up on special occasions.

The puppets are made of wood and usually stand sixteen inches high, but can be as tall as three feet. The puppet always has two parts: the body which is seen above the water, and the base which is under the water. The head and the arms are usually movable and are sometimes attached with cloth. The strings or wires used to connect the different parts of the puppets body can be made out of many things - even twisted hair covered with a layer of wax. The puppets may take on a lacquered look after being painted many times with a vegetable-based paint.

There are three ways of operating the puppets. Some puppets are attached to a long bamboo pole and dipped in and out of the water by a person behind a rattan curtain. The larger puppets are often attached to a round wooden disc which can serve as a floating attachment to the poles. Some puppets use a combination of both and may have a rudder to help guide them.

Learning to manipulate the puppets is usually a tradition that is passed on as a family secret. It takes a great deal of skill and because the puppeteers hands are underwater it is easy for them to hide their methods. Up to three poles are used with the puppets attached to the middle pole and the other rods supporting the puppet's. The legs don't move. Behind the stage, there is usually a central place to rest the puppets not in motion, and some puppeteers operate more than one figure at a time.

The technique has not changed much since water puppets were first created, although natural ponds have been replaced by nine-feet-long portable water basins. The stage is actually rectangular and is broken up into three areas. The puppets are kept on the floor above the two side rooms and the musicians play from one side.

The fascinating part is that the central room is below the water line, and the puppeteers stand in the waist-deep water. A rattan curtain hides them, but they can see the stage and the audience through the bamboo slats

Water has always played a central role in Vietnamese culture. And the word for water, nuoc, also means country or nation. The puppets advance and retreat in the water with the wave sound always being an important factor. The water must be a little muddy just like the ponds were so that the poles and mechanics can be obscured.

People who have seen water puppet performances often remember the music that goes along with the show. The drum beats more and more quickly as the show is about to begin. There is a drummer and gong and chants and songs to help animate the story, and the percussion instruments accompany the gestures to keep up the rhythm of a performance. The music also often introduces the theme of the play. No performance is complete without firecrackers which add to the excitement.

In the past, the puppeteers were peasants and belonged to a guild. As time went on, permission to enter the guild was more and more selective and the head of the guild, or ong trum, was responsible for many things including finances because the performances were free. Today the puppeteers in the Central Troupe are professionals who receive a monthly salary from the Direction of the Central Troupe of Vietnamese Puppets, a government agency, and they receive special grants when they perform outside the country.

Scenes from the Thang Long Puppet Troupe

Scenes in water puppetry are very short, usually lasting between one and seven minutes. Each recreates a certain activity or aspect of life in a traditional way that is very relevant to the Vietnamese. Human gestures and the actions of animals are readily adapted to water puppetry. The opening stage is a pond of water framed by a golden pagoda. There is a platform to the right for the musicians.

A Typical Program for the Thang Long Puppet Troupe

1. Raising of the Festival Flags to signal the beginning of the show.

2. Chu Teu or the narrator is introduced - he is the master of ceremonies. He is young, underdressed, naïve, irreverent and has a sharp wit and banters with the musicians and the audience.

3. Dance of the Dragons: Four dragons dance on the surface of the water greeting the audiences. Legend has it that the Viet people were descended from the union of a dragon and a fairy. They were powerful, wise and benevolent.

4. Bamboo Flute Player on a Buffalo - a popular folk song asks, "Who said that tending buffaloes is a hard life? Let me tell you about the rice fields, the villages enclosed in emerald green bamboo, the sound of a flute floating above the back of the buffalo". This evokes many shared memories.

5. Farming - The puppets are busy depicting the various activities crucial to agricultural life such as tilling the soil, planting rice and irrigating the fields by bucket. Eighty percent of Vietnamese live in rural areas.

6. Catching Frogs to supplement their diet and to sell in city markets; they are considered a succulent dish.

7. Rearing Ducks and Catching Foxes - in the major deltas of the country rice fields and ponds provide a natural habitat for ducks, but their tenders must be ever vigilant of the sneaking foxes.

8. Fishing - This is an important part of the Vietnamese diet and plentiful because of the long coastline, rivers, ponds and lakes. Both children and adults catch fish with all manner of baskets, nets and rods.

9. The Scholar's Triumphant Return: Exams were held every three years in the capital to select mandarins. Graduates were appointed to all levels of bureaucracy. The graduates then made a triumphant return to their respective native villages with fine clothing, honor guards, trumpets, flags, carriages and offerings.

10. Lion Dance: On the water, the puppets recreate the joyful lion dance which men perform throughout the country for the Summer Festival

11. Phoenix Dance: The courtship of a male and female phoenix is a depiction of the ritual in which the soulmates meet. They symbolize noble love and fidelity.

12. Horse Racing: Two steeds gallop along in a race while two neatly dressed young horsemen watch them attentively from the side. Each of the lads jumps on a horse and spurs it on to greater speed. The two even compete with each other in their skill at jumping on and off horseback.

13. King Le Loa and the Turtle or the Legend of the Restored Sword Lake: Le Loa led a ten-year uprising (1418-1427) to regain independence from China. Le Loi was greatly helped by a magic sword given to him by a turtle. After he became king in 1428, one day when boating on a lake in the capital, a giant turtle surfaced and asked for the sword back and the king then named the lake Hoan Kim (Restored Sword). "The lengthy sword has helped me before, it defeated tens of thousands of invaders. Now in peace, the magic sword is returned to its owner, and this lake shall be remembered as Hoan Kiem."

14. Children playing in water: Water is life sustaining in Vietnam as well as a great place to play.

15. Boat Racing - "Oye! Oye! Oye! The boat races begin and the competition is mighty.

16. Unicorns Play with a Ball: Two unicorns toss a ball back and forth, bringing to mind the rhythmic strengthening exercises of the martial arts.

17. Fairy Dance - King Lac Long Quan married Au Co in 2800 BC and they had 100 sons. After a time he told her "I came from the dragon and your ancestors were the fairies, it would not be possible for us to last forever together. Why don't you take 50 of our sons up to the mountains while I take the other 50 down to the sea? Lac Long Quan established the eldest son as the king of the new realm and the new King named himself Hung Vuong, and began the first Vietnamese dynasty.

18. Dance of Four Magical Animals: The guardians of Vietnamese temples who have the most magical powers (the dragon, the unicorn, the turtle and the phoenix) perform a closing dance.

Written by Steven K. Bailey from www.thingsasian.com

Culture and Arts Folk Arts Water Puppetry

Acacophony of flutes, gongs and drums fill the theatre. A procession of colorful flags moves across the waterway stage, banners fluttering out over the ripples. The four sacred animals - dragon, phoenix, tortoise and unicorn - dance in line. This is the traditional water puppet show.

Water puppetry, an art form unique to Vietnam, is a said to have been inspired by the annual flooding of the Red River delta, when religious statues floating out of the temples gave the villagers the idea of creating a new form of wet season entertainment. It is called the soul of rice fields because of its close association with water and the paddies, and was historically performed in thuy dinh, a two-storey village hall where the top was used for worship, and the bottom for performances.

Villagers would gather for shows at festival time or after the harvest in provinces around Hanoi. The traces of Thuy dinh dating back three centuries can still be found in several districts, the most famous being Thay pagoda. Water puppetry reached its peak during the Ly dynasty (1009-1225) - a show was performed for royalty in 1121 to honour King Ly Nhan Tong's great age.

The puppeteers stand waits deep in muddy water behind the bamboo curtain. The troupe was traditionally an amateur social group of 70 - 80 people, but only 20 of them were puppeteers. The head of the troupe, an elderly man acknowledged as the most experienced puppeteer, made all the decisions. According to village custom, females were forbidden to join the troupe for fear that when they married, they would reveal the troupe's secrets to their husband's families.

Water puppet themes involve both the rhythms of village life and national heroic legends. It can take up to 150 puppets to express the 16 legends that form the commercial repertoire of city theatres. The most popular character is the peasant compere Teu. Chubby Teu comes out in a bright red loincloth and sing let, admonishing villagers for their bad habits with a big smile and mischievous eyes. Teu is considered the creator of roi nuoc, and was traditionally worshipped during the performance.

A French newspaper wrote that the puppets are manipulated the unimaginable cleverness. It's as if they are being commended by an invisible power" The music and fire works, cleverly syncopated with the story, add to the excitement of thus folk art which combines sculpture, painting, embroidery, dance, fire work making, poetry and music.

Today, water puppet performances attract a steady audience of tourists than villagers celebrating the harvest in their thuy dinh, but the stories are the same and the crowd is no less appreciative of the magic and skill on show, finding it as entertaining as the peasants have for centuries.

A FLOATING WORLD

Vietnamese water puppets are respected internationally as an important art form, and a wooden statue of Chu Teu by Phan Van Ngai can be seen in the Louvre in Paris. Puppets are made from the wood of the fig trees that line village ponds. The first stage of puppet making is the carving of the wood by craftsmen, to give it its unique character. Then it is covered with gold or silver leaf, or other colors.

A final layer made from resin of the son tree- the raw material of lacquer - is added to waterproof the wood. It takes months to make a finished puppet. The average weigh is at about 2 kg, but some weigh in at 8 kg. The puppets are attached to a system of rods, with silk wires and a pulley system worked by both the hands of the puppeteer and the water, creating the illusion of the floating world

PROGRAM NOTES OF A WATER PUPPET SHOW at THE THANG LONG TREATRE

1.Musical Prelude

Each performance opens with two or three traditional Vietnamese tunes, played on traditional instruments. These tunes will vary from show to show. Both the artists and their musical selections are listed daily on an updated program.

2. Raising the flags and introducing "Chu teu", the M.C

It would not be a festival without colorful flags, traditionally in five different colors. The challenge, and indeed the art of water puppetry, is to keep the flags dry, even under water. Chu Teu's role is similar to that of a Master of Ceremonies, but with a uniquely Vietnamese style. He appears as a relatively young man with a comical young boy's haircut. He is also rather underdressed and acts as though slightly naive, at times irreverent but always with a sharp wit.

A sample of his introduction:

Teu toi von dong tren thien thuong

I, teu come from heaven

Boi hai dao bi truat xuong tran gian

Exiled down here for stealing a peach

Thay su doi boi roi da doan

Seeing that this society is full of complicated problems

Nen toi phai lan loi de lo toan su roi day ba con a!

I must wade in and try to sort out these entanglements!

(In Vietnamese boi roi often means "concerns" or "problems a play on words for "roi" in the next line which means puppets. Likewise "lan loi" figuratively means trying or struggling very hard and literally means diving and swimming - a clever if not too subtle reference to "roi nuoc" or water puppets)

3. Dance of the Dragons

According to legends, the Viet people are descended from a Dragon and a heavenly Fairy. They were said to be powerful, wise and benevolent. The Dragon Dance, like the flag dancing before gives the puppeteers the chance to show off their technical ability and dexterity.

4. On a Buffalo with a Flute

A popular to Vietnamese song asks: Ai bao chan trau la kho ( who said that tending buffaloes is a hard- knock life?) and the song goes on to list the various enjoyments spending a day outdoor on the back of a buffalo:

Toi xin ke ve dong lua nuoc ru bong tre

Let me tell you about the rice fields, the villages

Xanh ngat que lang lung trau sao thoi veo von.

Enclosed in emerald green bamboo

The sound of a flute from a buffalo's back

Hoi ai con nho co huong thi ve

Come back all those who yearn for the homeland.

5. Farming Activities

The part of the show has the puppets performing various agricultural tasks such as tilling the land, transplanting the rice seedlings and irrigating the rice fields with large buckets. Incidentally many of these practices are still used today and can be seen in the Red River Delta.

6. Catching frogs

This is a comical sketch in which the farmer tries in vain to capture frogs in his basket.

7. Fox stealing a Duck

Another vignette of Vietnamese agricultural life. In both the Red River (Song Hong) and Mekong (Cuu Long) deltas rice field and plentiful number of ponds exist. These provide a natural habitat for ducks. Unfortunately every once in a while, a certain creature finds a fat juicy duck simply irresistible!

8. Fishing

Fish is the major source of protein in the Vietnamese diet, from the famous (and pungent) fish sauce and shrimp paste to the delicate fish jerky and shredded dry shrimp. With its long coastline, Viet Nam has hundreds of rivers and thousands of lakes and ponds. As this performance shows, fishing can be both relaxing and also character building.

9. Triumphant Return

In the center of Hanoi the Van Mieu (Temple of Literature) still records the names of all literary doctorates who passed the national examinations, dating back to the 11th century. Large stone steles rest on the backs of giant stone turtles commemorating their achievements. The turtle represents longevity and highlights the importance of learning in Viet Nam society. The exams were held every three year in the capital to select mandarins. Graduates were then appointed to all levels of the bureaucracy, including the Royal Court. The graduates would then make a triumphant return to their home village in full regalia with all the benefits of office: fine clothing, honor guards, trumpets, flags, carriages and offerings.

This selection system, which has been observed for centuries, reinforces the Vietnamese attitude towards learning. This involves not only respecting learning for its own sake but also using it as a means of escaping poverty. In the most recent refugee crisis learning again proved its undeniable value: a person may lose everything he or she possesses; from status and wealth to loved ones, but education is something that can not be taken away.

10. Dance of the Lion

11. Dance of the Phoenix

12. Legend of the Restored Sword

In Vietnamese history, Le Loi successfully led a ten -year uprising (1418-1427) to regain independence from China. Legend has it that, Le Loi was greatly helped by a magical sword. In 1428, after he became the king, one day when he went boating on a lake in the capital a giant turtle surfaced and asked for the sword to be returned. The king duly agreed and the lake was named Hoan Kiem or Restored Sword Lake to honor the event. As the performance states:

Ba thuoc guom than giup nuoc khi

This lengthy sword has helped me before

Muon quan xam luoc het ra uy

It defeated tens of thousands of invaders

Thai binh than kiem ve nguyen chu

Now in peace the magic sword is returned to its owner

Hoan kiem ho nay dau khac ghi

And this lake shall be remembered as Hoan kiem

13. Swimming

Water, as well as being the sustainer of life in Viet Nam can be also source of fun especially for these youngsters.

14. Boat Racing

Loa loa loa!

Oye oye oye!

Mo dau ngay hoi la tro dua thuyen

To open the festival is the boat race

Thon dong chit khan dieu

The eastern hamlet wears red scarves

Thon doai mang khan luc

The western hamlet wears blue scarves

Thon muc buoc khan vang

The muc hamlet wears yellow scarves

Loa loa loa!

Oye oye oye!

15.Unicorns Competing for the Prize

16. Dance of the Fairies

A reprise of the Dragon and fairy theme, representing the ancestors of Vietnamese.

According to legend King Lac Long Quan (about 2800 B.C) married Au Co and together they had 100 sons. After a time he told her "I came from the Dragon and your ancestors were the fairies it would not be possible for us to last forever together. Why don't you take 50 of our sons up to the mountains while I take the other 50 down to the sea"

They split up Lac Long Quan established the eldest son as the king of the new realm, Van Lang. The new king named himself Hung Vuong and established the first Vietnamese dynasty.

17. Dance of the Four Magical Animals

The Four animals with magic power are: The dragon, the Unicorn, the Turtle and the Phoenix