Hàng Buồm Street

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.

Rather unexpectedly, Hàng Buồm is the location of one of Hà Nội’s oldest, most hallowed temples (corner of Hàng Buồm and Hàng Giấy), Bạch Mã (Temple of the White Horse), is considered to be Hà Nội’s Guardian Temple of the East, with its carved funeral palanquin (to carry the spirit of the horse) and stone guardians. Confusingly, the temple is also dedicated to the earth spirit, Long Đỗ (the Dragon’s Navel), who was also the spirit of Nùng Mount, located within the Citadel, where Long Đỗ lived. According to legend, the first Lý Emperor, Lý Thái Tổ, prayed at this pagoda in those days dedicated to Long Đỗ, for divine assistance in building the city’s ramparts. They kept crumbling – not too surprising when attempting to build earthen walls in the alluvial flood plain of a great river in monsoon climate. His prayers were answered when a white horse was the messenger of the spirit of Tô Lịch River. Where the white horse paused, temples have been built to guard the city: Bạch Mã in the East, Kim Liên in the South. Voi Phục in the West and Quán Thánh in the North.

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.

By Carol Howland