![]() Two water buffalo puppets and some floating greenery emerged from behind the screen and began miming a pastoral farming scene in the pool. Vietnamese water puppets are made of lacquered wood and can weigh as much as 30 pounds, but the puppet glided over the surface of the water, splashing and creating ripples as it danced. Out popped a puppet carved to look like a Vietnamese farmer from behind a colorful fringed screen in the pagoda. To the left of the pool, a small orchestra of traditional Vietnamese instruments began to play a rousing court song of trilling flutes and clanging gongs. In the Thang Long Theater, the rice paddies were brought inside in the form of a 13 x 13 foot pool of waist-deep water for the benefit of both the puppeteers and international audiences. Legend has it that the original puppeteers endured leeches and trench foot to perfect their craft. Water puppetry, or mua roi nuoc, was developed in the flooded rice paddies of 11th century Vietnam as a way to delight villagers and to appease the spirits whom the ancient Vietnamese believed to rule every aspect of their lives. The lights came up to reveal not a stage, but a pool of murky greenish water in front of an ornate backdrop depicting a red and gold pagoda decorated with cheery flags and banners. Just then, a recording in Vietnamese, French, and English welcomed us to enjoy the 1000-year-old tradition of Vietnamese water puppetry. There was no water in sight, and I was beginning to think that water puppetry would be just another in a series of misunderstandings, like the price of our hostel room or the duck feet floating in my soup. The auditorium was small and the seats were even smaller, with legroom sacrificed in order to pack in as many audience members as possible to the company’s five daily shows.Īs tardy arrivals, we squeezed past the other theatergoers-a 50/50 ratio of blue-haired tour groups from other Asian countries and vacationing families with kids-to our seats. But, pressed for time, we paid our 60,000 Dong (about $3) at the box office and went inside. Ignoring the many offers of rickshaw rides-getting there on time didn’t seem worth the public humiliation of being a tourist paraded on a rickshaw and then paying exorbitantly for the experience-we made our way on foot.Īrriving at our destination, I was surprised to see that the Thang Long (the imperial name for Hanoi) Theatre wasn’t on the lake, but across the street from it. Puppets in a lake sounded slightly more appealing than plain old puppets, so we set off for the theater. It’s water puppetry so it must be performed in the lake. If we didn’t get lost in the Old Quarter trying to find the theater, we could still make it to the last show.Īccording to our map, the theater was right on Hoan Kiem, a small lake filled with giant turtles in the heart of Hanoi. Ranked #1 in the Hanoi entertainment section was the Thang Long Water Puppet Theatre, a show that the writers of our guidebook did not advise you to leave Vietnam without seeing. I don’t know why they don’t just make more beer.) With no desire to head back to our stifling fourth-floor walk-up, we thumbed through the Lonely Planet looking for something exciting to do. But the amount of tourists that were as thrifty as they were thirsty meant that the kegs had run out almost as soon as they’d been tapped. We’d been playing rummy and drinking bia hoi, or glasses of fresh draft beer that local watering holes serve for pennies (literally, it’s about 20 cents a glass). That’s kid stuff.īut after dark in Hanoi, Vietnam’s historic capital, my travel buddy and I found ourselves looking for something to do. ![]() The Thang Long Water Puppet Theatre did not. ![]() On my list of must-sees for the week I spent in Vietnam last month (or, as the itinerary turned out, must-eats), temples, conical hats, and sidewalk noodle stands figured high.
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