Festivals

Papier-mâché mask

These masks are made from layers of paper brushed with cassava-starch paste, pressed over a mould, dried, lifted off and only then painted. In Ông Hảo village in Hưng Yên a few families still keep the craft, painting familiar faces: the Monkey King, Ông Địa, the puppet Tễu, the twelve zodiac animals.

On the mid-autumn night every kid wanted the Monkey King mask for the lantern parade, and with a stick in hand you were the Great Sage himself. After a while you were dripping with sweat and the elastic had left a red line behind your ears, but you refused to take it off until the moon-cake feast was over.

Do you remember? Whose face was the mid-autumn mask you remember best?

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