Water Puppetry at Thang Long: A German Delegation's Hanoi Afternoon

A Backstage Afternoon at Thang Long

On January 23, 2024, Mrs. Elke Budenbender, First Lady of Germany, sat with Mrs. Phan Thi Thanh Tam, First Lady of Vietnam (베트남 / 越南 / ベトナム)'s President Vo Van Thuong, at the Thang Long Water Puppet Theatre in central Hanoi. The visit coincided with a state visit by German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier. Before the performance, the two first ladies drank tea and ate traditional Vietnamese cakes — a small, unhurried prelude to what followed.

"Mua roi nuoc" (water puppetry) dates back over a thousand years in the Red River Delta. The form works simply: puppeteers stand behind a bamboo screen, waist-deep in water, controlling wooden figures across a water surface that serves as stage. Most performances show rural life, historical events, or folktales, underscored by traditional Vietnamese music played live by a small ensemble — a "dan bau" (monochord), a "dan nhi" (two-string fiddle), drums, wooden bells, and a singer whose voice carries the narration. The puppets themselves — carved fish, ducks, farmers, dragons — are as much sculpture as prop. Each figure is lacquered and painted by hand, typically from "sung" wood (fig wood), chosen because it resists waterlogging better than most softwoods.

After the performance, Budenbender and Thanh Tam went backstage. Budenbender examined the puppets close up, asked questions, and the theatre presented them both with gifts: traditional folk figures and a dragon mascot tied to the Year of the Wood Dragon, arriving in lunar calendar 2024.

Who She Is

Budenbender, 62, trained as a lawyer. She served as a judge at the Administrative Court of Hanover and later Berlin, then stepped back from the bench to focus on her role as First Lady. Her visit to Hanoi signaled Germany's interest in deepening ties with Vietnam beyond politics into cultural terrain.

She is not the first high-profile foreign visitor drawn to water puppetry in Hanoi. Barack Obama attended a performance during his 2016 Vietnam trip — the same visit where he and Anthony Bourdain sat down for "bun cha" at Bun Cha Huong Lien on Le Van Huu Street, a meal that became one of the most talked-about food moments in Hanoi's recent history. Bill Clinton, too, explored Hanoi's Old Quarter during his 2000 visit, stopping at Pho 2000 near Ben Thanh Market in Saigon for a bowl of "pho." These visits share a pattern: foreign leaders gravitating toward the same handful of cultural touchstones that everyday travelers discover on their own.

Image by Daderot via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA)

The Day's Other Stops

The German delegation also visited the Temple of Literature (Van Mieu), Hanoi's eleventh-century complex that housed Vietnam's first national university. They drank Vietnamese coffee — the strong, condensed-milk kind served over ice ("ca phe sua da") or hot — and visited the Goethe Institute in Hanoi, Germany's cultural outpost in the city since 1997.

It is a solid half-day route, and one that any visitor to Hanoi could replicate on foot. The Temple of Literature sits about 2 km southwest of Hoan Kiem Lake. From there, walking northeast through the Old Quarter to Thang Long Theatre on Dinh Tien Hoang Street takes roughly 25 minutes. Along the way, you pass dozens of street food stalls where you can grab a "banh mi" or a plate of "banh cuon (반꾸온 / 蒸米卷 / バインクオン)" (steamed rice rolls filled with minced pork and mushroom) for 15,000–30,000 VND. The Goethe Institute on Nguyen Thai Hoc Street is a short taxi ride south, or a 15-minute walk if you cut through the French Quarter.

Image by Steven C. Price via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA)

What to Expect Inside the Theatre

Thang Long Water Puppet Theatre sits at 57B Dinh Tien Hoang Street, on the northeast shore of Hoan Kiem Lake. The building is modest from the outside — easy to walk past if you are not looking for it. Inside, the auditorium holds around 250 seats facing a square pool roughly four meters across. The water is murky green by design; it hides the bamboo rods and string mechanisms that connect each puppet to the puppeteers behind the split-bamboo curtain.

A standard show runs about 50 minutes and cycles through 14 to 17 short acts. Expect a fire-breathing dragon opener, a scene of rice farmers planting paddy, a fishing sequence where wooden fish leap convincingly from the water, a buffalo-riding boy playing a flute, and a grand finale featuring a golden tortoise — a reference to the legend of Hoan Kiem Lake itself. Between acts, the live musicians shift tempo, and a vocalist narrates in Vietnamese. There are no subtitles, but it does not matter much. The stories are visual, physical, comic. Kids laugh at the duck scene regardless of language.

Tickets cost around 100,000 VND for standard seats (about 4 USD) and 200,000 VND for the first two rows. Shows run multiple times daily — typically at 15:00, 16:10, 17:20, 18:30, and 20:00, though the schedule shifts on holidays and Tet / 越南春节 / テト). Buy tickets at the box office at least an hour before the show you want, especially on weekends and during October-to-March high season. Online booking is possible through the theatre's website, but the box office is more reliable.

After the curtain call, the puppeteers step out from behind the screen, visibly soaked from the waist down. This is the one moment when the audience gets to see how it all works — eight or so performers standing in the pool, each holding long bamboo rods that disappear below the water's surface. It is a brief, honest reveal, and it changes how you think about everything you just watched.

Water Puppetry Beyond Hanoi

Thang Long is the most famous venue, but it is not the only place to see "mua roi nuoc." In Saigon, the Golden Dragon Water Puppet Theatre on Nguyen Thi Minh Khai Street in District 1 runs nightly shows at 17:00 and 18:30, with tickets around 120,000 VND. The production quality is comparable, though the theatre is smaller and the atmosphere slightly less formal.

In Hoi An, smaller troupes perform at venues along Bach Dang Street, often as part of a broader cultural evening that might include "ao dai" fashion displays and folk singing. These are more intimate — sometimes only 30 or 40 audience members — and you sit close enough to see the grain of the wood on each puppet.

The art form's roots are rural, not urban. Villages in the Red River Delta — Thai Binh, Nam Dinh, and Hai Duong provinces — still maintain local troupes that perform during harvest festivals and Tet celebrations. Dao Thuc village in Dong Anh district, about 25 km north of central Hanoi, has a community pagoda pond where puppetry has been performed for centuries. If you rent a motorbike and ride out on a festival day, you will see performances in their original setting: outdoors, on a real village pond, with an audience of families sitting on mats. No tickets, no assigned seating, no air conditioning. It is about as far from a tourist production as water puppetry gets.

What Surprises Foreigners

The water is the point. Many visitors assume the water is incidental — just a surface for the puppets to slide across. It is not. The water creates reflections, conceals the rods, amplifies sound, and produces splashing effects that are genuinely hard to replicate on a dry stage. When a dragon spits fire and the flame hits the water's surface, the reflection doubles the effect. The pool is shallow — only about knee-deep — but it transforms the entire mechanics of the performance.

The puppeteers get no applause mid-show. Because they are hidden behind the screen, the audience has no one to clap for between scenes. The laughter and gasps go into a void. It is only at the final reveal, when the performers step out dripping wet, that the audience can direct their appreciation at actual human beings. Regulars say this is the most moving part of the show.

It is loud. The live music is not background accompaniment. The drums, cymbals, and wooden clappers are played with real force in a relatively small room. If you are sensitive to noise, the seats further back are a better choice than the front row.

Photography is allowed, but flash is not. The theatre asks visitors to turn off flash, though enforcement is loose. The water's surface catches flash badly anyway — you will get better photos in natural stage light with a phone set to night mode.

The gift shop is worth five minutes. After the show, a small shop in the lobby sells hand-carved puppets — the same style used in performance — for 150,000 to 500,000 VND depending on size. They are solid, hand-painted, and make better souvenirs than most things you will find in the Old Quarter. The dragon and the farmer-on-buffalo are the most popular.

Quick Reference: Thang Long Water Puppet Theatre

• Address: 57B Dinh Tien Hoang, Hoan Kiem District, Hanoi
• Nearest landmark: northeast corner of Hoan Kiem Lake, 200 m from Ngoc Son Temple
• Show duration: approximately 50 minutes
• Show times: 15:00, 16:10, 17:20, 18:30, 20:00 (confirm at box office; schedules vary on holidays)
• Ticket price: 100,000 VND (standard), 200,000 VND (front rows)
• Best seats: rows 3–5 center — close enough to see detail, far enough to avoid splash
• Language: Vietnamese narration, no subtitles; stories are visual and easy to follow
• Combine with: walk around Hoan Kiem Lake, "egg coffee" at a cafe on Hang Gai Street, dinner in the Old Quarter — a bowl of "pho" at Pho Gia Truyen on Bat Dan Street (35,000 VND) is a 10-minute walk north
• Getting there: 2 km from Hanoi Railway Station by taxi (about 30,000 VND), or walk from most Old Quarter hotels in under 15 minutes

Thirty Years of Partnership

Vietnam and Germany established diplomatic relations on September 23, 1975. In 2011, they formalized a Strategic Partnership covering trade, investment, education, and conservation work. The Goethe Institute, founded in Hanoi in 1997, runs German-language courses and exhibits. Germany has also funded restoration projects for Vietnamese heritage sites, especially in Hue, the ancient royal capital, where conservation teams have worked on sections of the Imperial Citadel and surrounding tombs.

Visits like Budenbender's underscore how cultural exchange works in practice — not as abstract policy, but as an afternoon watching puppets move across water, asking questions, shaking hands with artists. It is a small thing, but it is the kind of small thing that sticks.

Final Note

Water puppetry is not the most famous reason people come to Hanoi — that would be the food, the Old Quarter, or the motorbike chaos. But fifty minutes inside Thang Long Theatre is fifty minutes spent watching a tradition that has outlasted dynasties, wars, and the arrival of smartphones in the audience. Go for the 18:30 show, then walk out into the evening light on Hoan Kiem Lake and find yourself something to eat. The city will take care of the rest.