Traditional craft workshop – Tò He rice flour paste toy figurines

FVH is delighted that our lovely Tò He artisan Mr Chu Văn Chiến who joins us on our booth at various community fairs has agreed to run this traditional workshop for us.

We first met Chiến at a festival about 5 years ago at the Thăng Long Citadel and since then he has a been part of our FVH team joining us at community fairs and bazaars.

The 300 year old Tò He craft orginated in Xuân La village, Phú Xuyên District, Hanoi.  It is  a folk ‘toy’ on a stick made of glutinous rice flour mixed with sugar, colouring which can actually be eaten.  Tò He figures  are particularly popular during the Mid-Autumn festival and Tet.  The 4 basic colours are yellow, red, black, and blue. In the past, people used colours derived from plants and boiled with a little powder: yellow from flowers or turmeric, red from Gac fruit or gardenia, black from burning straw or using plants soot, green from indigo or galangal.  These 4 colours would be mixed to create other colours. Nowadays industrial food colouring is used for convenience.

A 2 part event:
(A) Chiến will talk a little about his life, the history and traditional importance of Tò He, followed by the stages in how the rice paste is prepared  (B) Following a demonstration of how to make a Tò He  each us then makes our own Tò He (up to 3 figurines). 

A fun workshop for adults and children

Chiến will speak in Vietnamese and Vân will translate into English.

Maximum participants 10 people

200,000 VND (same price for all participants) to include donation to Chiến and material (he is taking time out of his regular Tò He work to run this workshop).  If we wish to make more than 3 there may be an additional cost of 20,000 vnd per item.  

Venue: To Chim Xanh – Bluebirds’Nest Book Cafe (a lovely book cafe with some cute cats), No 13, Alley 19, Dang Dung St, Ba Dinh District, Hanoi  https://goo.gl/uCi58m

Drinks and cakes can be bought from the cafe at a personal cost

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