ĐONG HO- WOODBLOCK PRINT VILLAGE

From Dâu Pagoda, follow Road 182 and go on for 4 km, you'll arrive at Đông Côi Crossroad (Milestone N°29 from the centre of Hanoi). This is the point of intersection of two roads: Road 182 and Road 38 linking the Town of Bắc Ninh to cẩm Giàng District (Hải Dương Province). If you turn left towards Bắc Ninh and go on for 4 km, you'll reach HỒ Ferry Landing on the Southern bank of the Đuống River. On the left of the Landing is Đông Hồ Village, whose popular name is Mái. This is an ancient artistic craft village because it is the cradle of a unique kind of popular wood prints, widely known as Đỏng Hồ prints, which are much admired by the connoisseurs of arts at home and abroad. At this Village, visitors will have the opportunity to watch the way craftsmen make their prints. Each family is a "workshop" with many models of engraved wooden boards because each print has many colours, each of which needs one model board. To make a complete print, you must have five or six boards. A painter creates a picture on a piece of paper which he sticks on the surface of a board and starts engraving. A good cut must be deep and vertical. The paper used for these prints must be a special kind of paper called do. It is made of a natural material, a wild plant called dó growing in mountains and forests, in a traditional manual technique. First, the dó paper must he coated with a layer of điệp which is the boiled mixture of the fine powder of the shell of a kind of bivalve mollusc and glue. This coat gives the paper a white glittering colour. Then, the printing is carried out, following a strict order: firstly, colours are printed, lastly black strikes. All the colours are made from natural materials: yellow colour from sophora flowers, blue from indigo leaves or verdigris, red from day-lily or sappanwood, black from the ash of bamboo leaves, etc.

There are many kinds of Đông Hồ prints: prints for worshipping purposes, those representing scenes of legends or ancient tales, pitures of historical personages, those representing the wishes for good health and happiness, etc. Among the highly-valued prints are: hens, cocks, pigs eating ráy leaves, mother pig and her children, wrestling, jealousy fighting, coco-nuts picking, etc.
Đông Hồ prints are neither so meticulous and subtle as Japanese woodblock prints, nor so splendid and painstaking as Chinese woodblock prints. They represent scenes of the daily life in the traditional society of Vietnam and at the same time, the simple wishes of the people. They are simple, realistic, and as natural as the soul of the Vietnamese peasants.