Hang Trong - Street of Drums

Tracing back to the past golden days, Hang Trong was once a truly exciting street with the convergence of various special traditional craft. They were: folk drawings, drum-making, embroidery, flag-making, etc. Drum-making craft was first started from Lieu Thuong village, Yen My, Hai Duong and the trade made it way to Thang Long with skillful migrants from the village. Interestingly, the drums they made came into different sizes and types: master drum, small drum, “rice” drum, ch?u drum…

The sound of drum products echoed with fame as much as the craft of folk drawing can do. This craft owed its birth to creative artisans of Tu Thap village, which made up an own style of Hang Trong Folklore Paintings. To have a painting in style, people use a wooden carving panel to print the black ink on the paper and then add more colors with painting water colors by their hands. Yellow, lotus pink, orange, green, blue were all vivid colors to interpret the breath of urban living. 

Hang Trong Folklore Paintings was divided into 2 types: paintings for worship and painting for Tet holidays. Paintings of Ba Chua Thuong Ngan (The Mountain’s Goddess), Ngu Ho Five Tigers, Bach Ho (White Tiger) were largely used in religious activities of people; whereas, Chuc Phuc (Wishing for Grace), Bon Mua (4 seasons), Ly Ngu Vong Nguyet ( The Carp contemplating the Moon) was favorite artworks to be displayed on New Year’s occasion. 

Although the modern life might bring other kind of art but the lively figures and vibrant colors of Hang Trong paints always leave a good impression in art-lover’s soul. 

Nowadays, Hang Trong is famous for other reasons like the street-side stall selling good rice noodle at a relatively cheap price and small stalls of “banh trang tron” – a popular southern specialty- standing next to one another.