Votive offerings market becomes busy

The market for paper votive offerings is hotting up as Vietnamese prepare for a traditional ritual on Kitchen God’s Day on January 26, the 23rd of the last lunar month this year.

Vietnamese believe that Ông Táo (Kitchen God) takes care of the kitchen and protects the family, and a week before Tet, the Lunar New Year, each family holds a farewell ceremony for Him. He then ascends to heaven to make an annual report to Ngọc Hoàng (the Jade Emperor) on the activities of the household during the year.

Many set free a carp in a lake or river in the belief the god will use it as a vehicle to travel to heaven.

Instead, some burn a paper carp, which is believed to be transformed into a spirit the god can use.

Other paper items like robes, hats, and boots are also burned as part of the ceremony.

A set of three robes, pairs of boots, hats, and carps each costs up to VND120,000 ($6.15).

As the Kitchen God’s Day approaches, the votive objects become more expensive but it is considered bad form to bargain or complain about their prices.

Forget carps, use a motorbike … or a car

These days, people no longer offer just paper carps to the Kitchen God but also fancy vehicles for a faster and easier trip to heaven. In case of motorbikes, it is a Honda SH or Dylan – costing VND90,000-150,000 – and if it is a car, it will be an Audi, Mercedes, BMW, or Lexus. A paper car costs slightly more than a motorcycle unless it is a Rolls-Royce or a Maybach. Then, it costs several million dong.

People also offer fake money to the Kitchen God for His use on the way to heaven. A bunch of polymer notes of all denominations costs VND3000-5000.

Other paper items like gold, paddy, and fruits are also bought and cost VND70,000-150,000. Vietnamese burn them to invoke luck, happiness, and prosperity in the New Year.

Calling the Jade Emperor? Use our Iphone

Votive objects in the shape of TV sets, computers, and cell phones are also burnt on the occasion.

High-end mobile phones like Nokia, Samsung, and even the Apple Iphone are among the most popular tributes to the Kitchen God.

Thu, who runs a shop selling the votive objects, says: “It takes a lot of time, skill, and effort to make these special votive objects. So we only supply them on request.”

The demand for pictures of the Kitchen God is also rising.

“Orders have increased fourfold this year. There is demand for 100,000 pictures but we can only supply 40 percent of that,” Phuoc, the oldest craftsman in a village that makes these pictures in the central province of Thua Thien-Hue, says.

The village not only caters to local demand but also supplies the pictures across the country. Trucks full of pictures are now ready to go for other provinces like Quang Tri, Quang Binh, Ha Tinh, Danang, Quang Nam, and Khanh Hoa.

Modern Kitchen God * According to tradition, the Kitchen God reports to the Jade Emperor on every action of each household throughout the year. Based on that, the Jade Emperor will either punish or reward families. But the tradition has undergone a slight change and the Kitchen God is now considered to keep a watch on the country’s activities. So it is common to see TV shows featuring Kitchen Gods reporting to the Jade Emperor on transportation, communications, education, electricity, water supply, and others. * After the Kitchen God leaves for heaven, a bamboo plant called cây nêu will be placed in the family courtyard and decorated with red streamers and flowers. It is believed to bring good luck to the family and ward off evil spirits during the god’s absence.

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Paper Lanterns In Dilemma

children enjoying their paper lanterns. Retaining good traditions proves to be an effective way to combat the negative effects of modern lifestyle

The demise of the Mid-Autumn paper lanterns is more than just the death of a craft village. It may involve losing a good tradition.

Several dozens of children are forming a paper lantern procession on the sidewalk. Each child, lit up with the joy on the face and the candle beams inside the lantern, walks one after another in a circle, singing in chorus favorite songs.

This is a typical scene found during the few weeks of Tt Trung Thu (Mid-Autumn Festival), traditionally a feast for children in Vietnam. However, in HCM City, the scene is now almost history as modern lifestyle has invaded urban households.

The Mid-Autumn Festival arrives around the middle of September. In the old days—about half a century ago—when video games and the Internet had yet to be conceived, children were eager to celebrate the festival specially held for them. It goes without saying that moon cakes are indispensable to the Mid-Autumn Festival. But to the kids at that time, one item was even more important: The paper lantern.

Weeks before the 15th day of the eighth lunar month, children in the city implored their parents to buy one paper lantern for them. Some even asked for more than one. The then Saigonese childhood was often associated with, among others, the world of colorful paper lanterns. To them, being submerged in hundreds of lanterns in all shapes and sizes when the Mid-Autumn Festival came was an immortal childhood experience.

The kids’ treasured lanterns were made of transparent paper glued on a bamboo frame. At the center of the frame was a wire coil strong enough to hold a candle upright. One of the most exciting things about the lantern was that it could be made into almost whatever children could manage to imagine—from their household pets, wild animals and automobiles to spacecraft. In the skillful hands of craftspeople, paper lanterns stepped into the dream world of children.

During the Mid-Autumn Festival, that dream world lasted for several weeks on end. Every night, often under the guidance of adults, children in the same blocks of houses flocked together, lit candles inside their lanterns, made procession and played traditional games which required a lot of physical activities. “Accidents” occasionally happened when a paper lantern caught fire, making its owner burst into tears. After the procession, the children went home to taste moon cakes reserved for them.

Of course, not all children in Saigon could enjoy that happiness as their families were too poor to afford neither a lantern nor a traditional cake. Those children expected a time when they could join their peers in a lantern procession.

Nowadays, Saigonese children’s eagerness for and delight in Mid-Autumn Festival and paper lantern procession have faded away substantially. Aside from competition from battery-operated, Chinese-made lanterns, fast pace of life, video games and other kinds of modern entertainment around the corner are all behind that fact.

Pay a visit to Phu Trung Quarter in District 11 and you’ll see how the tradition has changed. This area is the “craft village” in HCM City that provides Saigonese children with their favorite paper lanterns. Lantern making during Mid-Autumn Festival used to provide craftspeople in Phu Trung and its neighborhood with a lucrative business. During the festive season, tens of thousands of lanterns were produced to satisfy children’s need. Sadly, like the lantern procession, the hectic scene in Phu Trung is now just a memory.

Meanwhile, the Mid-Autumn Festival, a children’s celebration, seems to have turned into an event for adults with moon cakes being a common gift exchanged between companies. In fact, it is apparent that the moon cake business is less lucrative this year because the global economic downturn still drags on.

Entrepreneurial Saigonese are still obsessed with how to make money out of the moon cake. But Saigonese should also be mindful of the disappearing lantern village and their children’s indifference to traditional customs.
When paper lanterns are overwhelmed by violent video games in kids’ timetables, a high crime rate among the youth is often inevitable.

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Hoi An’s little towns serve up tasty treats

The UNESCO World Heritage listed town of Hoi An is known for its centuries-old streets, lanterns, tailors, Chinese temples, beaches and the Hoai River, which snakes its way through the emerald patchwork of paddy fields before discharging itself into the ocean.

But one equally important, but often overlooked cultural foundation is starting to gain traction with those in the know. The food from this central coast tourist centre is winning a reputation as some of the best in the country; and some of the cheapest.

Cam Nam Village, just a stones throw from the heart of Hoi An’s Old Quarter, typifies the sort of gastronomical experience available to people not afraid of straying from the uninspired menus of the lollipop cute cafes dotting the river’s banks.

This tranquil spot, at the lower section of the river, is home to dozens of little restaurants. The one thing they all have in common is that they all serve great local rustic fare.

Three of the most common local dishes served up to punters are: banh dap (smashing rice paper), hen xuc banh trang (clams served with crispy rice paper) and che bap (sweet corn soup).

Banh dap or smashing rice paper derives its name from the action needed to produce the dish. It is made from two pieces of rice paper – the first piece is crispy, the second is wet. To join them together, they must be smashed on to the table.

The two freshly joined pieces are then draped in oil cooked with onions and served with nuoc mam, a pungent fish sauce.

That’s it. A seemingly simple rice paper with contrary tastes: sweet and salty, crispy and soft.

Hen xuc banh trang is a combination of clams and crispy rice paper. The clams are fished up from the Hoai River, which runs through Cam Nam village.

The clams are boiled and then fried with dozens of fragrant vegetables and spices, including onion, spring onion, pepper, chilli, ginger, sugar water and peanuts.

When the clams are ready, crispy rice paper is set on the table, which is also used as a spoon for the dish.

Finally the desert: che bap (sweet corn soup). Hoi An’s sweet and sticky corn is perfect for this soup. Locals swear that one bowl is not enough and visitors that return are the first in line, ready for another helping.

Whether this is true or not is a matter of conjecture. What is true, is that no trip to Hoi An is truly complete without sampling the culinary spectacles that small village’s like Cam Nam have to offer.

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Rice paper village

In the small village lying along the beautiful Ba River in the southern coastal Phu Yen Province, it was supposed to be a quiet  day.

Dong Binh’s renowned rice paper factories were not working at full capacity but still columns of smoke were rising up into the sky and bamboo grids filled with rice paper lined its roads.

The smell of rice flour pervaded the air and armies of trucks carrying rice paper passed in and out of the village.

Local residents don’t know when rice paper was first made here; they only know they learnt the craft of making it from their parents who learnt it from theirs.

But they think it started with one or two households making it to sell during the Lunar New Year, funerals, and death anniversaries before it gradually caught on.

Now, every household in Dong Binh makes rice paper.

Phu Yen people are very proud of the village’s savory white rice paper which has become popular all over the country. It is made from rice grown in Tuy Hoa city and irrigated by the Ba.

Like everything else, making good rice paper requires hard work. The rice must be soaked in water for up to five hours and then ground into flour. A normal work day starts at three in the morning. A wood fire is lit, water is boiled, and flour is kneaded.

Besides rice flour, wheat flour is also used to prevent the rice paper from breaking during transportation or becoming sticky when softened in water for use as a wrap. Two kilograms of wheat flour is added to every 10 kg of rice flour.

When the flour is kneaded, the right amount of water must be added; too little makes the paper thick, and later, when steamed, causes it to cook unevenly. Too much, on the other hand, makes the rice paper brittle.

Once the flour is kneaded, it is rolled into a very thin round on a flat pan and steamed.

This job is mostly done by women since they are considered to be more dexterous and meticulous, essential qualities for making nice, round rice paper.

They work in teams of at least three -- one spreads the flour, another spreads the rice paper over a bamboo grid, and the third carries the grid to dry under the sun and removes the rice paper when dried.

Spreaders are often likened to drivers since their hands never stop working. One hand stirs the flour and the other mixes it or adjusts the heat. Every move has to be quick and precise.

Even drying the rice paper in the sun requires experience -- if it is dried for too long, it will either become brittle and break or bend.

Nature’s blessing

Spreading the rice paper needs nature’s cooperation in the form of sunny weather. Most producers do not work on wet days. If it suddenly starts to rain while the flour is being rolled, the work is halted.

But on sunny days, every household in Dong Binh rolls 30 to 40 kg of rice on average (1kg of rice makes 20 to 25 pieces).

During the Lunar New Year, almost the whole village works through the night to make enough to meet the demand within and outside the province.

At night or when it rains, people use fire to dry the paper.

Dong Binh makes rice paper in various thicknesses, with the thickest being the most expensive. Prices range from VND3,000 for a pack of 10 pieces to VND7,000.

Though every household has its own secrets in mixing the flour and adding ingredients, they all make rice paper that is different from anything else made elsewhere in the country.

Dong Binh rice paper is popular as a wrap to roll up food since when soaked in water it does not stick or melt. It is also added to fried chopped meat and fried shrimp cakes.

It has a slightly tough taste and the fragrance of young rice stalk. If stored in a dry place, it keeps for several months.

In Phu Yen, there is a simple dish locals dearly love and show off to visitors: pork and vegetables wrapped in Dong Binh rice paper.

A few of the papers, a little chopped pork, and fresh vegetables, and a very delicious dish is ready.

Getting there: From Tuy Hoa city, drive along Highway 25 until you reach the 2km highway marker. Follow the small road off the highway until you reach the village.

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