Masks made from recycled paper
Every Mid-Autumn Festival, Ong Hao village, Nguyen Van Linh commune, Hung Yen province enters the busiest time of the year. Paper masks, star lanterns, lanterns, lion heads... are handcrafted from the hands of village artisans.
Among the families who still preserve the craft, Mr. Vu Huy Dong's house is one of the households that has been associated with the Mid-Autumn Festival toy making profession in Ong Hao village for many years. For more than 40 years, Mr. Dong has been diligently working with paper, cement molds, and paint to create paper masks with the unique characteristics of the village.
In the family's production workshop, toy making stages are carried out manually. From cardboard, white paper, newspaper and cassava paste, workers layer each layer of paper onto cement molds to create shapes.
This stage requires the maker to glue the paper evenly, creating firmness for the product but still maintaining the shape of the mold. When the product dries, the craftsman continues to paint and draw each detail.
Mr. Dong said that each year his family produces about 8,000-10,000 products, including masks, drums and lion heads. Masks alone have many designs, imitating familiar characters such as Thi No, Chi Pheo, Ong Dia, Sun Wukong, Zhu Bajie and many animal shapes.
According to Mr. Dong, the toy making profession in Ong Hao village dates back to the early 1960s of the 20th century. At that time, the village had a cooperative making drums and toys. After the cooperative dissolved, skilled workers continued to open their own workshops, maintain their work and pass it on to later generations.
Working all year round, but the busiest are still the months before the Mid-Autumn Festival. This is also the time when orders increase, and products are shipped to many provinces and cities," Mr. Dong said.
According to Mr. Dong, although industrial toys are increasingly diverse, the village's paper masks still have their own customers because they are handmade, have diverse designs and bear the characteristics of traditional Mid-Autumn toys.
His family's products are taken to many localities in the North such as Hanoi, Hai Phong, Quang Ninh and some southern provinces and cities such as Da Nang, Ho Chi Minh City.
The sound of drums extends the profession of our ancestors
Not far away, at the family of Mr. Vu Van Hoi and Mrs. Nguyen Thi Lanh, the sound of chiseling and knocking echoed in the workshop. The couple still maintains the drum making profession, another traditional craft of Ong Hao village.
The drums are made to sell to schools and serve the needs of Mid-Autumn toys. Each year, the family produces about 2,000-3,000 drums.
To make a drum, the craftsman must pay attention right from the wood selection stage. The wood is bought from Hanoi, then rolled into pieces. The wood must be dried thoroughly before making the drum, because according to craftsmen, the drier the wood, the better the drum sound; if the wood is not dry, the sound of the drum will be affected.
Ong Hao village drums are made from woods such as xoan, jackfruit. The drum surface is covered with buffalo or cowhide, stretched and firmly fixed to create a resonant, regular sound. Depending on the type, the drum has many names such as tang ghép drum, bang drum, ngu loi drum, cặp drum...
According to Mr. Hoi, in the past, people in the village mainly farmed, then many families continued the profession of their fathers. Drum making is therefore maintained through many generations. Each year, income from the profession can be about 100 million VND, but there are also years when consumption is slow, income is only a few tens of millions of VND.
“This profession is a profession left by my ancestors, so I still want to keep it. Doing the profession sometimes works, sometimes doesn't, sometimes it's difficult, but giving it up is very regrettable. I just hope that in the future, my children and grandchildren will still know this profession, and there will still be people who continue to do it so that the traditional craft of the village is not lost” - Mr. Hoi shared.
Amidst the increasingly diverse industrial toy market, the paper masks and handmade drums of Ong Hao village still retain their unique features. These are not only products serving the Mid-Autumn Festival but also the achievements of a craft passed down from generation to generation.
Every Mid-Autumn Festival season passes, the craftsmen in the village continue to add paper, paint masks, wooden trays, and stretch drum skins. These seemingly simple tasks are contributing to preserving a part of the traditional Mid-Autumn Festival memory in modern life.
