About 8 km from Truong Tien Bridge, Hue City, Thanh Tien village in Phu Mau commune is located between rice fields, lotus ponds and the downstream of the gentle Huong River. Walking along the main road leading to the village, visitors will see signs attached to the front doors of houses. That is the paper flower making facility of Thanh Tien artisans - a craft village recognized by the People's Committee of Thua Thien Hue province as a traditional craft village.
Thanh Tien village has a traditional craft of making paper flowers that has existed for over 300 years.
Thanh Tien villagers are mainly farmers, and there are only five paper flower production facilities during the year. Every Tet holiday, the whole village is busy with bamboo, rattan and colored paper to decorate their houses and serve the needs of villagers and other provinces, said artisan Nguyen Huu Hung, 78, owner of a paper flower facility in Thanh Tien village.
Mr. Hung’s house is located in the middle of the village, standing out with a display of traditional paper flowers that have appeared in the village for the past 300 years. With a tradition of making paper flowers for three generations, he knows how to make almost any kind of flower. Through his calloused hands, lotus, orchid, lily, and chrysanthemum flowers bloom in the old room, competing to show off their colors.
Artisan Nguyen Huu Hung dedicated a room to display the village's traditional paper flowers.
The cool wind blowing from the fields brought his story back many years ago. In the past - his voice rose in a low tone - in Hue there were not as many fresh flowers as there are now, flowers shipped from Da Lat were scarce and expensive. But every year, during Tet, everyone wanted to decorate their ancestral altars. So people came up with the idea of making flowers from dyed paper, which could last longer and were cheaper than fresh flowers. From then on, the paper flower village was formed and has been maintained to the present.
In the past, paper flowers were placed in places of worship in the house, temples, shrines, shrines, altars of the local god, the kitchen god, as decorations that brought solemnity and respect. The flowers were kept all year round and only replaced on the occasion of the Lunar New Year. Therefore, every December, every family was busy making flowers in a bustling atmosphere. Nowadays, along with the development of tourism in traditional craft villages, some establishments like Mr. Hung's produce paper flowers all year round. In addition to business, these paper flower production establishments are also places for tourists to visit, experience and learn about local culture.
Thanh Tien paper flowers were used by ancient people as worship flowers, bringing a respectful and solemn look.
The characteristic of Thanh Tien village paper flowers is that all production stages are done by hand. From the available materials in the village combined with rich imagination and skillful hands, the ancients simulated the shape and color of flowers.
The main materials for making paper flowers are bamboo and colored paper. Before the rainy season, many families making paper flowers like Mr. Hung's family cut down bamboo, split it into small pieces, and rounded it, taking advantage of the sunny weather of June and July to dry it. The dried bamboo sticks are then hand-bent into shapes to make branches and flower stems.
Thanh Tien paper flowers are made from simple, locally available materials such as bamboo and colored paper.
To create different types of flowers, artisans use iron chisels to carve colored paper on wooden flower molds, then use fishing line to create folds and lines. The pistils are also made from colored paper, trimmed to shape and glued between the petals to create a complete flower before being attached to the stem.
In the past, households making paper flowers in Thanh Tien used resin and leaves to make dyes according to a traditional recipe. This manual method takes a lot of time and effort, so today, most establishments have switched to using colored paper.
Mr. Hung introduces the tool kit used to make paper flowers.
A complete Thanh Tien paper flower branch consists of many types of flowers such as orchids, lilies, roses, chrysanthemums, wild sunflowers, and wallflowers, with red flower buds and long green rice leaves, symbolizing local farming. The completed flower branches are attached to a bamboo stick wrapped in straw, each stick has about 50 branches, and costs about 750,000 VND.
This product is favored by hotels, restaurants, and traditional-style cafes and ordered in large quantities because of its rich colors, beautiful shape, long shelf life, economical and expressing the poetic soul of Hue. Mr. Hung said that during the recent Tet At Ty, he received about 70 orders. The paper flower branches and bamboo sticks wrapped in straw were carefully packed in boxes and shipped to customers from other provinces. Mr. Hung then guided customers to arrange flowers remotely via phone screen.
A bougainvillea branch consists of many kinds of flowers with many bright colors.
A bougainvillea tree with about 50 flower branches
The most famous product of Thanh Tien village is the paper lotus flower with high authenticity and meticulousness, which is more than 130 years old. Thanh Tien paper lotus flower with four main colors: blue, yellow, pink, purple appears in major festivals such as Hue Festival, Ao Dai festival, cultural and artistic exchange programs, displayed in Hue Imperial City and Nguyen Chi Dieu Memorial House, Thanh Tien village, Phu Mau commune, Hue city.
Paper lotus is a famous product of Thanh Tien village because of its high realism and beautiful color gradient.
During the grand celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Liberation of the South and the reunification of the country on April 30, the image of convoys decorated with sunflowers inspired artisan Nguyen Huu Hung to create sunflowers made from colored paper. Holding two vases of bright yellow sunflowers that never fade, he smiled proudly. Sunflowers are flowers that always turn towards the sun, just like Vietnamese people turn towards their homeland. “I hope my new product will be well received by many people, especially during the upcoming 80th anniversary of National Day on September 2. That is a comfort and motivation for people like us to preserve the traditional profession and pass it on to the younger generation of the village,” Mr. Hung confided.
Sunflower is a product of artisan Nguyen Huu Hung inspired by the sunflowers used to decorate the April 30 holiday.
Over time, Thanh Tien paper flowers have become a cultural feature of Hue. Thanh Tien villagers put the poetic soul of Hue into each piece of colored paper and bamboo stick to create immortal, unfading flowers, like the beauty of Hue, of Thanh Tien paper flowers flowing forever with the flow of the Perfume River.
