Phố Hàng Mã
Century-old paper-votive trade turned toy and lantern bazaar, glowing brightest before the mid-autumn festival.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Phố Hàng Mã in Hanoi's Old Quarter follows a five-hundred-year-old trade in paper votives, funeral offerings burned for the dead, from paper servants and horses to paper motorbikes and televisions. It traces the street through French colonial renaming, postwar campaigns against ancestor worship, and a 1991 police raid that hauled paper mansions out to burn in the street. Look between the toy stalls for the bundles of gold votive paper still tucked among the lanterns and lion heads.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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