Hanoi votive paper villages in peak season

Traditional votive paper-making villages in Hanoi are now in their busiest time of the year with the Ram Thang Bay coming.
Ram Thang Bay is the second most important festival in Vietnam after Tet, the Lunar New Year. It takes place on the 15th of the seventh lunar month, and is a time to give thanks and praise to parents and ancestors. Its most important function though is to help lost souls by pardoning and looking after them.
On Ram Thang Bay, it is taboo for Vietnamese people to purchase clothes, unless they are for the dead, based on the concept that life on earth is the same as in the hereafter.
At this time simple votive objects, such as votive paper, incense, paper clothes, popcorn, gold and silver trees, are sold everywhere by peddlers. Votive paper shops offer more ‘luxurious and modern’ votive objects such as high-rise houses, motorbikes, TV sets, fridges, gold and silver ingot, and even “paper beauties”.
Photos about Phuc Am and Duyen Truong votive paper-making villages ahead of Ram Thang Bay.