Northern villages and water puppetry

      Farmers in Vinh Bao District, Hai Phong, are earning their living through preserving water puppetry.
Being called while transplanting rice seedlings, Mr. Thieu and several farmers hurriedly stopped the farm work to wash their hands and flock to the pond at the village’s communal house to perform water puppetry, serving foreign tourists.
Some foreign visitors watched traditional water puppet extracts with great concentration. It is more interesting when they know that the puppeteers are farmers.
“This is a secondary job but this is a stable source of income for villagers,” said farmer Tran Van Phuoc, the chief of the Nhan Hoa puppetry troupe.
Nhan Muc village, Nhan Hoa commune, Vinh Bao district, Hanoi has been the home for water puppetry for many generations. Phuoc, who has lived with water puppetry for many decades, doesn’t know when this art came to his village.
He said Nhan Muc villagers didn’t perform water puppetry for a long time because of wars. This art was resumed after the country’s reunification in 1975, but only at festivals.
In 1983, the Nhan Hoa puppetry troupe was established and developed along with the country’s open door policy. As more foreign visitors come to Vietnam, the troupe is very busy to serve tourists under the orders of tourism companies. A 30-minute show is priced at VND 500,000 (US $29.00).
Phuoc was repairing some puppets, saying that “We perform puppetry extracts based on legends, folk and historical stories, such as the ‘Legend of Hoan Kiem Lake,’ ‘Thach Sanh,’ ‘Fox Catches Duck,’ ‘Teu,’ ‘Hung King Chooses a Son-in-law,’ and ‘Fishing.’ We have over 30 extracts.”
During his free time, Phuoc creates new extracts. Whenever a new item is practiced, the whole village comes to see as the first audience.
Phuoc also makes puppets himself. His troupe has more than 100 puppets, ranging from fairies to farmers, dragons, phoenixes, buffaloes, foxes, ducks, Teu, and others.
“Making puppets is economic but it is more important that puppets are lively and suitable to our extracts. Each new puppet is like my new child,” he said.
After each show, farmer-artists earn several US dollars each. The pay is not high but it is good for farmers.
Also in Vinh Bao commune, Bao Ha village in Dong Minh commune is famous for making wood statues and puppetry. However, farmer-artists in Bao Ha can perform puppetry everywhere because they perform dry puppetry.
We went to Bui Van Ngat’s home, the chief of the Bao Ha puppetry troupe, and saw his wife. She said that Ngat and his troupe went to Hai Duong to serve a village festival.
“My husband was very busy after Tet (lunar New Year). He rarely stayed at home this time,” she said.
Bao Ha village has another puppetry troupe, owned by Dao Minh Tuan. This is water puppetry troupe was established in 1999.
Tuan was previously the chief of Dong Minh commune’s cultural division. He suddenly retired to open his own puppetry troupe at the age of 40.
He borrowed some money to repair a small pond behind his house and built a stage to perform water puppetry. He invested more than VND 100 million (US $6,000) to buy hundreds of puppets and tools. He built a small house to keep these puppets. Tuan’s puppetry troupes currently have ten members.
He said the troupe has nearly 150 shows for tourists at home and many shows at festival and events throughout the northern region. The Minh Tan puppetry troupe is a member of the Vietnam Puppetry Association.
Coming to Bao Ha village, tourists can watch puppetry and buy puppets created by villagers.
Tuan was recently invited to teach water puppetry to a travel firm in Phu Quoc Island in the southern province of Kien Giang.