Belgian radio and television this month featured a report on the Phu Cau incense village in Hanoi, introducing this hundred-year-old incense village as an “Instagram phenomenon.”
The report by La Une Channel, the French-language Community Radio and Television of Belgium (RTBF), began with an introduction to the approaching Tet holiday in Vietnam and how the incense village is a popular destination for tourists. The village is vibrant with colors due to thousands of incense sticks drying outdoors, making it suitable for check-ins and photography.
The report highlighted the diverse colors in the hundred-year-old incense village. Traditional incense sticks are usually red and pink, but now there are additional colors like yellow, green, and light green to cater to the Instagram photo trend. Visitors need to pay around 2 euros to enter designated photography areas. Some spots are set up for tourists to observe and capture beautiful photos from a higher vantage point.
Sarah Vanmalderghim, a Belgian tourist, shared with La Une that this incense village possesses the wonderful beauty of traditional craftsmanship. Catherine Caro, a tourist from the Philippines, commented on the abundance of colors, making it an ideal place for eye-catching social media photos.
The report also emphasized the beauty of traditional craftsmanship in the village, where bamboo sticks play an essential role in the local culture. The transmission of traditional crafts from generation to generation is a precious aspect preserved by the artisans in this area.
Previously, the AFP news agency also featured a report on the atmosphere of making incense in the days leading up to Tet in 2022 in the traditional Quang Phu Cau village in Ung Hoa district.
For many consecutive years, Quang Phu Cau village has been a meeting point for domestic and international photographers. Images of neatly arranged incense bundles on the courtyard have won numerous major photography awards. A photo capturing two women drying incense in the Quang Phu Cau craft village in Ung Hoa district, Hanoi, taken by Bangladeshi photographer Azim Khan Ronnie, was one of the six winning photos in the International Siena Photography Awards 2020 taken in Vietnam.
Quang Phu Cau village in Ung Hoa district, about 35 km from the center of Hanoi, has a tradition of making incense for over 100 years. Within the country, incense is shipped to many provinces such as Thanh Hoa, Nghe An, and Lang Son. Additionally, this product is exported to various countries, including China, India, and Malaysia