Vietnamese American Restores Hue Royal Heritage to Grandeur
A Vietnamese expat from America has undertaken the recreation of Hue royal dress in Vietnam, costumes that once graced royalty under the Nguyen Dynasty (1802-1945).
Vietnamese American Trinh Bach in 1994, on a return trip to visit his mother’s home village in Ha Tay province, was deeply saddened by the degradation of ancient cloth banners in Hong Lien pagoda. It was this moving experience that inspired him to dedicate great efforts to restoring Vietnam’s ancient banners and dress, preserving this one part of Vietnam’s colorful heritage.
During the trip, Bach traveled the country to meet veteran artisans who made embroidered outfits as well as other items as offerings for the kings and mandarins. Since then he has devoted his life to recovering Vietnam’s ancient court attire, and reproducing imperial costumes of the Nguyen court.
The work is a result of his extensive research, dedicating time and effort to preservation of Vietnam's cultural heritage. The reproduced objects were made for Vietnamese museums and for decoration of Hue's restored royal temples.
Bach, whose mother came from a mandarin family of the Nguyen Dynasty, moved to the U.S. in 1972. In the early 1990s, he and his friends established the English-language VietNow magazine in the U.S. to disseminate the history and traditional culture of Vietnam.
Bach has traveled to many parts of the country to find artisans who could participate in his restoration efforts. The artisans come from the former imperial capital of Hue, the silk-weaving villages of La Khe and Van Phuc in Ha Tay Province, and the pottery village of Bac Giang and the silver-carving village of Dong Xam in Thai Binh Province.
He has also met the offspring of the Nguyen royal families who reside abroad to learn more about imperial costumes and visited many museums in China, the United States, South Korea and Japan to explore the differences between Vietnam’s and other countries’ royal dress.
Bach has acquired a valuable collection of reproduced heritage that has been shown at many local events, exhibitions and cultural projects.
The restored costumes went on display at the Vietnam Museum of Ethnology in Hanoi in August and in Hue in July to honor the city's traditional handicraft villages.
At the festivals, Bach demonstrated his methods of silk twisting, brocade weaving and pattern embroidery, used in restoring the royal costumes. These methods require not only refined skills but also great patience and dedication, to preserve what could otherwise degrade, and be lost in time.
Source: VNA – Compiled by Thu Thuy.
Story from Thanh Nien News
Published: 15 November, 2005, 22:22:35 (GMT+7)
Copyright Thanh Nien News
