Hàng Mã Street

Hàng Mã Street (phố Hàng Mã) is a street in Hanoi famous for selling toys, paper goods and in particular paper votive offerings. The street has been selling paper goods for more than 500 years.^[1] The street carries some of the wares of religious goods stores.

Votive offerings

In Vietnam votive offerings now include:

• all kinds of joss paper goods - cars, villas, mopeds, household electronics, paper iPads - to be burnt for the dead. (Chinese zhǐzhā zh:紙紮). Older more traditional items such as paper servants, horses have fallen out of use.
• "Hell bank note" (vi:Tiền âm phủ, Chinese zhǐqián zh:纸钱) - imitation dollars, credit cards, or traditional "ghost money" found in Chinese communities.

During the period before Vietnam's reforms these offerings were suppressed.^[2]

The street also gives its name to đồ hàng mã, "Hàng Mã things," a generic name for paper votive offerings.

References

1. Jan Dodd, Mark Lewis, Ron Emmons Rough Guide to Vietnam 2003 - Page 374 "The most colourful examples are Hang Quat, full of bright-red banners and lacquerware for funerals and festivals, and Hang Ma, where paper products have been made for at least five hundred years.
2. Andrea Lauser, Kirsten W. Endres Engaging the Spirit World: Popular Beliefs and Practices in Modern Vietnam. 2012 Page 113 "As late as 1991, on my first visit to Vietnam, there had been recent raids on the votive paper dealers along Hàng Mã Street whose wares had been confiscated and publicly destroyed."