Back in Hanoi (and reality), I visited the park in the middle of the city, which surrounds a lake.
And then I caught a puppet show. This tradition started in the rice paddies, but has moved into theatres. These elaborate puppets, sometimes with multiple “characters” on each, float on the water and are controlled on long poles by puppeteers behind a curtain. There are sparkler-shooting dragons and comedy sketches -- something for everyone.Here is the "stage".
This next picture shows the puppets telling the story of Le Loi, the founder of the Le Dynasty, who defeated the Chinese with a magic sword given to him by the Golden Turtle God. As the story goes, one day shortly after this victory, he was floating on the lake in Hanoi (the very same one from my pictures earlier in the day) and a giant turtle surfaced and took back the sword, thus returning it to whence it came. (If you ask me, it sounds like he accidentally dropped the magic sword in the lake and came up with a whopper of a story to cover it up, but then again, I've always been a little cynical.) 
And here are the puppeteers, so you can an idea of the relative size of the puppets.
This next picture shows the puppets telling the story of Le Loi, the founder of the Le Dynasty, who defeated the Chinese with a magic sword given to him by the Golden Turtle God. As the story goes, one day shortly after this victory, he was floating on the lake in Hanoi (the very same one from my pictures earlier in the day) and a giant turtle surfaced and took back the sword, thus returning it to whence it came. (If you ask me, it sounds like he accidentally dropped the magic sword in the lake and came up with a whopper of a story to cover it up, but then again, I've always been a little cynical.) 
And here are the puppeteers, so you can an idea of the relative size of the puppets.
1 comment:
I swear the turtle just jumped up and grabbed it!
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