Hàng Thiếc
04/06/2010
|
10:11:00
VGP - The noisiest street in town – and that’s saying something in the Old Quarter. Hàng Thiếc (Tinsmith) Street originally made oil lamps, candlesticks, teapots and metal boxes. The tinsmiths here still work with sheet metal as well as selling mirrors and glass, a spin-off from tinsmithing, as tin was used to blacken the back of mirrors. Before glass mirrors, bronze and tin were highly polished as mirrors.
  |
|
Hàng Thiếc Street’s products in the old days (L) and now (R) |
Rolls of metal screening and grills for balconies stand
stacked in front of these shops. This is the street for furniture castors, door
handles, all manner of metal fittings, as well as metal boxes of ll sizes.
A temple dedicated to the patron founder of mirror-making
originally stood at No. 2 (now a workshop). At the bottom of Hàng Thiếc, the temple
that stood at No. 42 Hàng Nón Street, was
dedicated to the pioneer of tinsmithing, who brought the techniques to Vietnam
in 1518.
In 1947, Hàng Thiếc became a battlefield. After bombarding the street, the
following morning the French advanced from Cửa Đông
through Hàng Nón and rolled
into Hàng Thiếc firing
cannons. Their military garrisons were on the site of old citadel, where by
then the imperial palaces had been demolished and military garrisons built.
The fighting lasted fourteen hours, the French occupying the odd site of the
street. The next four nights saw continuous fighting. A plaque at No. 5
memorializes the battle: “on 7 February 1947, a unit of the Capital Military
Forces killed hundreds of French troops in this street.” It does not say how
many Vietnamese sacrificed their lives.
Hàng Nón Street (left)
at the foot of Hàng Thiếc, was noted for
making hats, ceremonial poera (tuồng), and musical folk opera (chèo). Ordinary
straw hats (la gia) were made of fried leaves, thick and thin. Mũ chào hats were
shaped like a pan. Nón lính, soldiers’ hats, were shaped like a large dish, using
the bark of bamboo with a copper button on top and the wearer had to tie it on
with a strap. The nghè hat was round with an astonishing wide diameter of one
meter – and said to be 23 inches thick. A smaller, inner cap of bamboo helped
to hold it firmly on the head. Ba tầm hats were deeper. Both nghè and ba tầm hats had metal “strings”, sometimes silver or gold to match the buttons on top.
Dark violet strings, quai thao, were made from twelve loops of long silk
fringe.
Chiefs of villages wore hats made of black feathers with
a tin or cooper tip at the top. Rich people and high-ranking mandarins wore
hats decorated with white feathers from the night heron with a gold or silver
tip. So it would have been easy to distinguish a hat-wearer’s social or political
position by the hat he wore.
To get some idea of the skill of the costume makers and
the extravagance of theatrical costumes, you can still see performances of
brief excerpts from traditional opera (tuồng)
around the corner at the National Tuồng Theater, 51 Đường Thành, a little further west (see the chapter on
Traditional and Folk Opera).
By Carol Howland