Thăng Long - Hà Nội ngàn năm

Hàng Buồm

06/08/2010 | 08:59:00

VGP - By the mid-eighteenth century, Hàng Buồm, had become almost a self-contained community of Chinese from Canton selling mostly agriculture products, rice and sugar as well as fruits imported from China. Among those imports was opium on behalf of the French Opium Monopoly. Following the Treaty of Ports, the British foisted Indian opium onto the Chinese market. The Manchu authorities protested at the British import of Indian opium – opium had been prohibited in China for many centuries although there was a thriving black market – first in 1840 by dumping chests of imported Indian opium into the harbor, igniting the Opium Wars, then by exporting some of the unwanted evil on to Hà Nội.

Hàng Buồm Street in early 20th century

Hàng Buồm became an infamous good-time street of opium dens, bars, restaurants, and theatres and later, cinemas. Little Sầm Công Alley, off Hàng Buồm (to the left), was a notorious red light district of brothels, two carved wooden peaches indicating brothels, hanging over many doors. The saying went: “Hàng Buồm is a place of drunkenness – drunk in the morning, drunk in the afternoon, drunk in the evening, drunk all the time. “Reminiscent of its colorful past, one building facing Le Maquis Bar calls itself “The Cheeky Quarter.” Nestled amongst beauty and nail salons, tattoo and massage parlors, the Red Mask and Hà Nội Dramatic Theatre look as though they have died and passed on. With the passage of time, the character of the street has changed – families sitting in front of their shops look remarkably wholesome.

Bạch Mã Temple in Hàng Buồm Street, considered to be Hà Nội’s Guardian Temple of the East

Bạch Mã has been rebuilt several times and is in the process of being smartened up as I step through the red lacquered doors of the gate to the sound of sanding and traditional Vietnamese music. In the courtyard, men are rubbing down, and then reapplying red lacquer and gold paint to the parallel sentence panels attached to the pillars of the pagoda. To the left hangs a huge ceremonial drum, to the right a television set, presumably for the guardian. A Vietnamese-style rock garden in a pond dominates the right side of the courtyard; backed by a wall there a fish is being transformed into a fiery dragon, floating through clouds, alluding to the Confucian notion that through hard work an ordinary person can become extraordinary. Not only were dragons the dual symbol of power and the emperor, but according to the Việt creation myth, the Vietnamese believe that they are the descendants of a fairy and a sea dragon.

In an update to worship, pyramids of soft drinks stand on the altar to the jolly, life-sized white horse, kept company by two giant gilt lacquered cranes (hạc). The three Taoist Holy Mothers of Sky, Water and Earth watch from their glass case on the right. On the left is a shrine to Nam Hải Tứ Vị Thánh Nương, a Chinese queen of the thirteenth century, who with her child and nanny, threw themselves into the sea to avoid capture by the Mongolians. Since then, she has acted as the Protector of Sailors.

In the temple behind, huge china vases and two delightfully comical figures with pot bellies face one another. The owner of the nearby Ladybird Café explains that the old man with the big nose and the jutting chin is the people’s hero—deity—for Longevity and the other, who holds money in his hand, represents Prosperity. Another source suggests that because of their dark skins, they were captured Chàm. The Hindu-Buddhist-Islamic kingdoms of Champa to the south and Đại Việt were frequently in conflict during the Lý and Trần dynasties.

In the early days, a live buffalo was sacrificed in the temple to ensure a prosperous new year. More recently, a ceremony called “Beating the Buffalo” took place to signify the end of winter and the beginning of spring. An earthen buffalo was thrashed with as mulberry branch, then carried ceremonially to the imperial palace.