For the past 20 years, Ms. Tran Thi Mai Anh (46 years old), an artist working at the Thang Long puppetry Theater, has been determined by her passion behind the bamboo tray.
In a small house on Quan Thanh Street (Ba Dinh, Hanoi), Ms. Mai Anh lives with her mother and 2 sons. Her eldest son is an adult and has a stable job, while his second son, only 10 years old, has a passion for ballet.
Her less than 20 square meter living room is filled with photos and achievements associated with her career. In it, a small corner is named Quoc Tuan - her youngest son who has participated in many large and small shows.
Looking back at her children's photos in the album, Ms. Mai Anh still hesitated about deciding to let her children study professional dance. Twenty years of water puppetry have left rough bottles and early wrinkles on her hands.
"I love this job. But an artist's life is not easy. A series of tireless working days, nights standing in cold water until their toes were numb, and their income was unstable. After many years of hard work, I wondered when I saw my child want to learn dance.
I am constantly fascinated by ballet. He waited for me to sleep and then took his shoes to practice in the living room. When I woke up in the morning, my shoes were parked on the floor. I was afraid that my child would leave early and come home late like me, if he had not been successful in studying, life would be very difficult," actress Mai Anh confided.
Passion, whether water puppetry or ballet, all share a burning fire in the heart.
When she showed off photos of her children going to the theater and performing the play "Klip Canh Da", her eyes were mixed between worries about an uncertain future and pride when seeing her children giving their all for passion.
"My mother also loved her daughter and didn't want me to pursue a hard career like water puppetry. But over time, she understood that it was my passion, so she always encouraged me.
Until now, I can't stop my child, because everyone has the right to be happy, to do the job they love. In the past, my mother could not stop me, how could I not let her go to the dance", Ms. Mai Anh shared.
Ms. Mai Anh is one of the veteran actors of Thang Long puppetry Theater. After a long time of training, she loves the job she calls "swing", making stiff wooden puppets come back to life and glid on the water.
Each puppet can weigh from 5-10 kg, or even weigh tens of thousands of kg, and is attached to a long sao tree for remote control. Ms. Mai Anh and her colleagues have to use a complex rope and sao system to make puppets naturally move on the water surface - dancing, dancing, playing drums, releasing kites, or performing daily activities such as plowing fields, fishing.
Wearing a rubber outfit weighing a few weights, Mai Anh performs each play for about half an hour. During each 20-minute break between books, she took the opportunity to go to the market and instruct her children to complete housework.
"Behind the bamboo curtain, no one knows who we are, what our faces are like. I often joke with colleagues, this job does not require beautiful appearances, because they never show their faces," said Ms. Mai Anh.
Soaking in water almost all year round, she said that puppet actors often have a series of "common diseases" such as low joint, hand, foot and foot fungus, spinal cord pain due to being able to bend a lot, muscle atrophy due to water pressure... However, the theater is still open 365 days/year, as a testament to the persistent efforts of water puppet artists.
