The Water Puppet Show -- Hanoi

Different cultures have different venerated activities.  In Vietnam, the “Water Puppet Show” is one of those.  We opted not to go in Saigon because we knew we would be going in Hanoi, and today was the day.

It is much as the title suggests.  There is a live 7 piece orchestra playing traditional instruments, a lady who does vocals and a roughly 20 x 20 stage that is, umm, water.

There are screens at the back of the stage similar to those roll-down bamboo things that we use on the patio to cut the sun.  They also run along the sides, and the puppets enter and exit between them.

We have gone to a number of cultural events, some of which we did not understand in the slightest, because, hey, as long as we’re here, we may as well. This is how we ended up sitting through Madam Butterfly at the Sydney Opera House – 3 hours of Italian yodeling.  There was a show in Cambodia, too, although the name escapes me, that we didn’t understand in the slightest, other than that it was a lot like a Passion Play in that it told a historic story and had live animals.  At least at the Opera there was a scroll across the top of the stage that translated the story.

So with this in our back pocket, we went to the Vietnamese Water Puppets.

Let’s start by noting that the chairs were designed for the typical Asian sized body, not American ones.  Especially not those that are 6’4” tall.  EB’s knees didn’t just meet the back of the chair in front, they pushed against it to the point that he couldn’t sit up straight.  Even LJ’s pushed up against the ones in front.

EB's knees slammed into the seat back in front of him

Now let’s fill the theater – not to capacity, but with enough people (especially those on either side of us) that it wasn’t convenient to slip out and change to one of the empty rows, at least not for an hour-long show.  It was easier just to go to our happy places.

So the music starts.  It’s a house band, apparently led by the drummer who is a young guy with that disaffected look that all drummers seem to have.  After all, he really doesn’t have to have musical talent, he just needs to be able to count and keep a beat, and he’s doing that.

Remember that most Asian music is based on a 5 point scale, rather than the 7 point one that we traditionally encounter in western culture.  It already sounds unusual to our ears, which isn’t to say that it’s not pleasant, it’s just different.

So the music starts, and the puppets come out, presumably telling fables or tales that everyone knows – unless, of course, you’re not Vietnamese, in which case you have no earthly idea what’s happening.  As best we can figure, there were a series of vignettes, all of which were unrelated.  Some told stories about catching a fish, there were a couple of fire breathing dragons dancing in the water in another (although the pilot light went out on one of the dragons), one had a couple of families of ducks swimming along and a cat that jumped in and grabbed a baby duck.

There were dancing ladies (think the CanCan, but without bustiers and petticoats), and at least one event that involved a dragon, a unicorn, a tortoise and a phoenix).

It was intriguing to try and figure out how they were doing it, because until the 10 people working the puppets came out to take a bow, we had no idea how many were back there, nor do we yet have any idea how they did it.

Or why water?  That would seem to just complicate the matter of the puppets – why not just do them on a stage and eliminate the sogginess of the event?

Anyhow, it was very skilled and a national treasure – and entirely lost on us.

Here is a link that explains more about it -- we read it after returning from the show:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_puppetry

First, there were these people all around us who insisted on pulling out their smartphones and taking FLASH pictures.  The kind that focus a spotlight up there before they flash, because, of course, we’re in a darkened theater.  It apparently never occurred to any of them to dim their screen, either, because they’d hike them right up to shine back in everyone else’s face.

Mind you, it’s not like we were missing dialogue.  We now know how a Vietnamese person would feel if they were subjected to the “Country Bear Jamboree” without much explanation.  You don’t get the direct jokes, much less the innuendo that was probably there, and if there was a plot we missed it entirely.

Would we do it again?  Probably not, but we’ll do something that’s the equivalent in another country.

Here is a link I found online where a couple who attended put it on youtube.  Some of the people in the "band" were the exact persons on the stage when we saw it yesterday.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdD0Ep05kb4