These beautifully-crafted lanterns appeared in Hoi An in the 17th century after Chinese émigrés settled in the port town. Then Chinese styled lanterns would have lit the streets at night just as they do now – but without electricity of course!
Soon Vietnamese inhabitants started to manufacture the lanterns. Nguyen Duc Trung, a 75-year old lantern artisan, says it was a man called Xa Duong who bequeathed the art of making lanterns to present day Hoi An.
Duong lived in poverty and travelled to the town from his village to earn a crust every day as a servant for a Chinese family that lived off producing lanterns.
Thanks to his diligence, patience and intelligence, Duong learnt how to make the lanterns and after plying his trade as a lantern maker throughout his life, he passed the skill on to his children.
According to Trung just 25 years ago, lanterns were mostly in the shape of large umbrellas. These lanterns could not fold up into a neat bundle, as they can be today, making it easier for visitors to pack them into a bag and bring them home.
With the advent of tourism, lanterns have evolved into round, square and diamond shapes as you will see today on the streets of Hoi An, while materials have improved from paper to silk or coloured cloth. Decorations on the lanterns range from the traditional to the modern.
“We buy cloth and silk from Ha Dong in Hanoi or from China,” Trung says, adding that traditionally, frames of lanterns were made with soft wood or bamboo.
With his skilled fingers joining the whittled down frame to the glued sheets of silk to create a ball-shaped lantern, Trung says this is a rather demanding job, though he makes it appear easy.
“What is most difficult is making the structure of lanterns both firm and tight,” he says.
Later on, I lose myself in the glistening evening on Pho Den Long (Lantern street), a 100-metre long road that skirts along the river. It is a wonderful place for tourists to take an evening amble before or after dinner.
Every Wednesday, Saturday, Sunday and on the fourteenth day of every lunar month the lanterns are lit in the traditional manner with candles inside. I hear a sweet flute playing from behind a line of willow trees on the river as I approach Chua Cau (Bridge Pagoda).
This bridge was built in the style of a pagoda with touches of Chinese and Japanese characteristics. Chua Cau is symbolic as it is where cultures blended hundreds of years ago. Hoi An as a former port town, after all, was a multi-cultural hub of central Vietnam as far back as the
16th century.
Now Hoi An is heading overseas. At a workshop where hundreds of lanterns are churned out daily, 40-year old Pham Bich Ngoc proudly tells me her products are exported all over the world.
She says that currently there are about 80 large lantern workshops in Hoi An, employing 500-600 skilled workers. Every year, some 250,000 lanterns are sold to foreign visitors. Inevitably I leave with my own one bound for Hanoi.
“Now, Hoi An’s lanterns have become an exclusive trademark of Vietnam. We are proud of being born in this town and making these famous products,” Ngoc tells me.