Exploring the 300-year-old Thanh Tien Paper Flower Village in Thua Thien Hue
Over 300 years old, Thanh Tien paper flower village has revived its paper lotus and turned the craft into a charming cultural tourism experience in Hue.
Thanh Tien village, in Phu Mau commune, Phu Vang district, Thua Thien Hue province, lies along the lower Perfume River near the famous Sinh junction, renowned for paper-flower making, especially the lotus.
Paper-flower making in Thanh Tien village, Hue, dates back more than 300 years. The main products were flower clusters and white lotuses made from thin pelure paper. As the flowers were made mainly to display at Tet and were not very durable, the craft gradually faded.
Painter and paper-flower artisan Than Van Huy, a son of the village, resolved together with his relatives to research and innovate so as to 'give the flowers a new coat', especially the lotus. From a lotus that was merely white, made of thin pelure paper on a short bamboo stem, the Thanh Tien paper lotus has become fuller, more colourful and more varied in form. There are pink lotuses, five-colour lotuses, lotuses still in bud, half-opened and in full bloom, their long soft rattan stems set into sand.
Each lotus usually has nine petals made from dyed paper. Besides the flowers, Than Van Huy also makes paper lotus leaves that look very much like real ones, and stamens fitted with lights for decoration. Every stage of making the flowers and leaves remains entirely by hand, and the petals are pleated in the traditional way.
Than Van Huy believes that preserving and developing the traditional craft must go hand in hand with tourism. He renovated his family's living space, naming it Lien Hoa Thanh Tinh Vien, and turned it into a place to visit that introduces the Hue ruong house, the Vietnamese culture of ancestor worship and, above all, Thanh Tien paper flowers.
Visitors come from home and abroad, adults and children alike. Almost everyone takes delight in the distinctly ancient Vietnamese architecture as well as the experience of making a paper lotus themselves in 40 to 60 minutes.
Many visitors to Lien Hoa Thanh Tinh Vien remark that each visit feels like stepping into another world. The peaceful, verdant Vietnamese countryside appears in full, and the noise of modern life seems to halt outside the small alley before the house.
Today, Thanh Tien paper flowers are sold not only at Tet. Many places order the village's flower clusters for decoration, and tourists are very fond of buying paper lotuses as gifts - a product that has even appeared at Phu Bai airport in Hue.
