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Puppetry is a traditional performing art long existed among the ethnic groups living in Vietnam. It originated from the wet rice civilization since the Hung Kings founded the country. The Sung Thien Dien Linh stele erected at Long Doi Pagoda, Doi Son commune, Duy Tien district, in Ha Nam province in 1121 under the Ly Dynasty bears the inscription that the puppet show was first staged in honour of the King’s longevity.

Under the natural conditions and their agricultural activities, the Vietnamese people have been close to the water. For this reason, Vietnamese peasants have created water puppetry into a unique performing art of the country. In the past, water puppet shows usually took place when the farm work had been generally completed, in springtime or in village festivals. The French called water puppetry with gentle puppet figures “The soul of the Vietnamese rice fields”, and commented, “With creativeness and sense of discovery, water puppetry can rank among the most important performing art forms of the puppetry theater”.

The way of using water to activate the puppets and to hide the manipulating apparatus and the maneuvering of the puppet figures constitute the most splendid creativity. Water gives breath to puppet figures and makes them look more lively and cheerful. Water is also involved in the show together with the puppets as it was once commented, “Water also becomes a character of the puppet show”. The peaceful water surface gently undulating with a flock of swimming ducks becomes romantic in the illusory veil of smoke when a group of fairies land for singing and dancing.  But it also becomes seething and furious during naval battles or when powerful yellow dragons are emerging.

A French newspaper article wrote: “The puppet figures are manipulated with an unimaginable cleverness. It’s like they are commanded by magic power”. This is the uniqueness, attractiveness and creativeness of water puppetry.

In the past, water puppet shows used to be staged in the broad daylight and in the open air. Few theatrical performances show such a perfect harmony with the natural scenes as does the water puppet show.  Amidst romantic scenery, spectators have a chance to contemplate an artistic genre in which land, water, green trees, cloud, wind, fire and smoke are present, so are curved red tile-roofed communal houses. In fact this is a perfect harmony between art, nature and human beings.

Vietnam’s puppetry has been known with its two main genres: Stage puppetry and water puppetry. Stage puppetry has several forms such as hand and rod puppets from Dong Minh in Hai Phong Port City and Te Tieu in Ha Tay province, string puppets from Moc Thieu Hy in Cao Bang and Bac Thai provinces. Water puppetry, a unique traditional art genre only exists in Vietnam.

Catch it while you can!

The melodies of Ru vary from one region to another. Ru are original or modified six-and-eight foot/line popular poems put to music. The rhythm is determined by the meter of the poem, but the lines are elongated with nonsense syllables à ơi, ù ơ, à á ơ, à ơi ơi.

In North Vietnam, Ru are sung in a straight pentatonic scale DO-RE-FA-SOL-LA. The following songs are lullaby songs sung by a mother to her child.

Con ơi, con ngủ cho lành,                        My child, sleep well,
Ðể mẹ gánh nước rửa bành cho voi          So mom can carry water to wash the elephant’s back,
Muốn coi lên núi mà coi,                          If anyone wants to see, go up the mountain
Có bà Trưng, Triệu cưỡi voi bành vàng.     To see Mesdames Trưng, Triệu riding the elephant’s golden backs.

Still the six-and-eight foot/line poems with nonsense syllables ơ ơ inserted, the following song is from Nghệ Tĩnh (Central Vietnam). It lies only in three notes LA-RE-FA:

Ơ..., ru em, em ngáy cho muồi,               Lullaby sleep well,
Ðể mẹ đi chợ mua nồi nấu ăn,                 So mother can go to the market to buy an earthen saucepan,
Ơ..., mẹ em đi chợ đường trong              If she goes to the southern market,
Mua em đốt mía vừa cong vừa dài,           She will buy you a long and bent sugar cane,
Ơ..., mê em đi chợ đương ngoài,             Or if she goes to the northern market,
Mua em đốt mía vừa dài vừa cong.           She will buy you a bent and long sugar cane.

In Southern Vietnam almost all lullabies begin with the words ví dầu (imagine):

Vì dầu cầu ván đóng đinh,                         Imagine walking on a board-bridge fastened with nails,
Cầu tre lắc lẻo. gầp gềnh khó đi.               It is hard as walking on an unstable bamboo bridge.

Since the early days of Viet Nam's history, the Vietnamese have always had to fight against invasions, especially from the armies of various Chinese dynasties. The bronze weapons exhibited in the National Museum of History help give an insight into the weapons the Vietnamese used during the first millennium B.C. These include daggers, axes, swords, and spears. All are weapons employed in hand-to-hand fighting. Handling these weapons required courage, endurance, dexterity, and skill, which in turn made it necessary to develop forms of fighting that could facilitate their effectiveness.

Subsequent historical circumstances facilitated further development of martial arts among soldiers and generals as well as among common people. In 938. Ngo Quyen achieved victory over the Southern Han invaders on the Bach Dang River. Viet Nam regained its independence after over a thousand years under Chinese domination. A series of patriotic struggles against foreign invaders followed: against the Song (981 and 1077), the Mongols (1258. 1285. and 1288), the Ming (from 1418 to 1428), and the Qing (1789).

Buddhism was the official national religion during the Ly and Tran Dynasties (eleventh to fourteenth centuries). In addition to religious study. Buddhist monks were often adept at martial arts because the monks had strict methods of self- control and personal improvement and trained themselves in the mysteries of spirit, reason, energy, and strength. During the Ly Dynasty, monks organized temple and pagoda festivals. which included activities imbued with the martial spirit, such as wrestling and martial arts tournaments (bare-handed or with weapons).

The training for tournaments allowed common people to improve their physical strength and sharpen their senses and their reactions. During 1293, Chinese Special Envoy Chen Fu visited Viet Nam. He observed that the Vietnamese went barefoot without fear of thorns. They could run and leap rapidly, climb mountains like the wind, and row boats quickly. The men shaved their heads. They could dive under water for several khắc (an ancient unit of time) and swim as fast as they could run on land.

From the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries, martial arts existed at two main levels: the popular level (at festivals) and the royal level (specialised martial arts training and examinations).

Common people organized popular martial arts activities both to provide entertainment and to perfect their martial spirit, discipline, efficiency, and self-defence skills. Popular martial arts performances took place throughout the country, primarily at training centres (Iò võ) and at annual traditional festivals.

Each Iò võ or local festival had its own identity and specific characteristics. One of the most famous for its martial spirit was the Lieu Doi Wrestling, Festival in Nam Dinh Province. The martial arts and wrestling events there attracted people from Lieu Doi and from the region. The villagers of Lieu Doi still sing a song that dates back to this festival:

                                             Ngàn năm võ vật đua tài
                                      Vạn năm sông rộng, núi dài tổ tiên
            (People   have  competed   in   martial   arts  for thousands of years
            They  can  protect  their country  for tens  of thousands of years)

Village festivals were the martial-arts examinations of the masses. Villagers bestowed the title of "First Laureate" (trạng vật) on talented local wrestlers in much the same way as the royal court gave titles to scholars.

Many of these men later became leaders of peasant insurrections. Examples include Nguyễn Hữu Cầu and Nguyễn Cừ, who fought against the Lê-Trịnh Court in the late eighteenth century, and Lía, who fought against the Nguyễn Lords. The most famous of these martial artists were undoubtedly the Tây Sơn brothers (Nguyễn Nhạc. Nguyễn Huệ, and Nguyễn Lữ. They and their gifted commanders, all of whom were martial artists, led a peasant uprising in the late eighteenth century: they overthrew the harsh domination of the Trịnh and Nguyễn lords, ending the century-long division of the country. Those heroes trained in Iò võ with famous masters, many of whom are deified as village tutelary spirits.

During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, martial artists who had declined titles in defiance of the Nguyễn Dynasty led many of the anti-French insurrections. During this period, the martial arts rose in popularity. Masters secretly transferred their skills to students even when the anti-French movement was less active. They preserved their techniques and practices in books on warfare and military art and in proverbs. These books and proverbs gradually became a martial arts training curriculum for the masses and co-existed with the court's martial arts canon.

The royal martial arts system also trained soldiers to fight invaders and protect the court. The content was divided into three parts: martial arts for the army, martial arts for study, and martial arts for examinations.
At the end of the nineteenth century, the traditional strategies, tactics, and combat techniques of Viet Nam's military science began to show certain weaknesses when posed against Western military technology. Canons could destroy strong fortifications, and pistols and rifles could overwhelm swords and spears. The new "hot weapons" (hỏa khí) were superior to the old "cold weapons" (bạch khí). Suddenly, martial arts no longer played a decisive military role; its practice continued but on a much smaller scale.

Under French domination, the court army ceased to train in martial arts. Western sports and gymnastics dominated at schools. However, the Vietnamese remained proud of their martial arts masters,   who   preserved   the   traditions   and developed martial arts among common people. Practitioners from different regions networked with each other and set up numerous new Lò Võ and new martial arts schools. Centres of martial arts gradually emerged: Thang Long-Ha Noi in the north: Thanh Hoa. Nghe An and Binh Dinh Provinces in the centre: and Sai Gon and the Mekong River Delta Provinces in the south.

Since the late nineteenth century, boxing and schools of martial arts have also entered Viet Nam from other Asian countries. These include judo, aikido. and karate (Japan): wushu. shaolin, and wudang (China): tae kwon do (Korea): and pencat silat (Malaysia). Vietnamese have accepted these schools, which have transformed, enriched, and enlivened indigenous martial arts.

Traditional martial arts are not only sports but also part of the nation's culture, embracing a heritage accumulated across many generations.

Cheo is a specific and special art of Vietnam's cultural heritage, a vivid manifestation of the Vietnamese soul and a national cultural identity. Cheo has been crystalized from the heroic and grueling life of Vietnamese ethic communities in their founding and defense of the country.

The characters are those of daily life and presented by the Masters, the principal styles, different types of declamation and chant. A few of the characters (the monk, drunk, clown, etc.) show this to be a highly sophisticated art form.

This artistic show is performed weekly on Fridays and Saturdays from 20h to 21 h at 15 Nguyen Dinh Chieu, Hanoi.