Water Puppet Show the unique feature and cultural character of Hanoi

Water Puppet Show is a typical cultural value that tourists can’t skip this as traveling to Vietnam. The wooden puppets are painted with lacquer and get floating on the water at the waist-deep pool. The puppeteers use a large rod supports the puppet under the water and are normally hidden behind a screen, so that the puppets appear to be moving over the water. That’s the Water Puppet Show in Vietnam.

Contents

The true attraction of the Water Puppet Show

The attraction is from (1) the living style exposure, 92) it helps to reveal other cultural features of Vietnamese, (3) the uniqueness of the art.

(1)

Water puppetry dates back as far as the 11th century when it originated in the villages of the Red River Delta region of Northern Vietnam. The place marks the regular flood seasons when farmer their could not do anything but waiting for the water to get away. Among that setting, the villagers would entertain each other using this form of puppet play, the puppet in the water of flood seasons.

The usual content of water puppet performance exposes the daily life of Vietnamese farmers (cultivating, tending buffalo, catching fishes…), communal entertainment (swimming contest, dragon dancing…), or historical legends (Le Loi king returns precious sword…), taking the audience on a journey of ancient village life, agricultural harvests and dances of mythical creatures for many centuries. Watching those can help visitors to understand slides of culturally daily life of Vietnamese.

(2)

Sitting in the performance hall can be a special experience as we do not only see the puppet but enjoying the rest. That’s the clothes and make-up way of the musical and sound makers, the singers which reflect the traditional one of Vietnamese at the Kingdom time. That’s the sound made by the music and sound team that can reflects the festive and daily life sound of Vietnam at villages. That’s the sketches of dragons, happy people, farming life style that tourists can see along their journey in Vietnam.

(3)

Puppet is available at many countries, but this is unique and could not find any similar puppet type in the world. The Hanoi team has shown the performance across over 40 countries and receive the high evaluation of other teams. It sis just because they don’t make it by themselves. They just copy the real one in the community and show that to other countries. At the moment, at villages at Red River delta in North Vietnam, puppets are still a kind of festival as the flood comes. That’s why it is real, authentic and cultural representative.