"A five-century-old paper goods street that turns into a lantern market before Tet."
Hang Ma (Lantern Street), Hanoi Overview
Hang Ma is a shopping street in Hanoi's Old Quarter that has sold paper goods for more than 500 years. Traders here supply joss paper and votive offerings, known as do hang ma, including paper houses, cars and imitation currency burned in ancestor worship. In the run-up to Tet and the Mid-Autumn Festival, shopfronts fill with lanterns, masks and decorations, earning the street its popular nickname, Lantern Street. Located near Dong Xuan Market, it remains one of the Old Quarter's most colourful and photographed lanes.
Hang Ma sits in Hanoi's Old Quarter, part of what was one of two main marketplace streets in the area by the late 19th century, alongside neighbouring Hang Duong. For more than 500 years its shops have specialised in joss paper and votive offerings for ancestor worship, from paper houses and cars to imitation "hell bank notes," a trade that persisted even through periods when Vietnamese authorities restricted such religious practices. Toy stalls share the same lanes. In the weeks before Tet and the Mid-Autumn Festival, vendors hang colourful lanterns, masks and decorations across the shopfronts, drawing shoppers and photographers and giving the street its popular name, Lantern Street.
