Dong Ho Painting Village

Dong Ho prints were made for Tet: cheap, bright woodblock pictures of pigs, chickens, wrestling children and satirical scenes, bought by households to paste up for the new year and thrown away when it faded. The technique is specific - paper from the bark of the do tree coated with ground seashell to give it a shimmer, colours from charcoal, leaves, and rust, and a separate block for each colour. Nearly all the village abandoned it for making joss paper in the late twentieth century, and two families continue; the tradition was submitted to UNESCO for urgent safeguarding. Demonstrations and prints are sold at their workshops.

What you actually see

• Prints made for Tet - bought, pasted up and thrown away each year.
• Shell-coated bark paper - which gives the surface its shimmer.
• A block per colour - pigments from charcoal, leaves and rust.
• Two families still working - out of a village that gave it up.

When to go

Year round; the weeks before Tet are when most is made. Half a day.

Honest expectations

Most of what is sold in Hanoi as Dong Ho is printed elsewhere by other means. The village is now largely joss paper production. Workshops are family houses and visits are informal. There is no museum as such.

Nearby

But Thap pagoda is nearby; Bac Ninh and its quan ho villages are north.