Mid-Autumn Program «Lưu trăng phố cổ 2026»

   For one month, Hanoi's Old Quarter becomes a trail of six storytelling stations, each opening its own chapter of the Mid-Autumn Festival: handmade toys, mooncake workshops, Vietnamese tea culture and an evening lantern procession around Hoàn Kiếm Lake. If you want to see Tết Trung Thu the way old Hanoians remember it, this is the season to come.

   The program is organised by Ban quản lý hồ Hoàn Kiếm và phố cổ Hà Nội, the management board of Hoàn Kiếm Lake and the Old Quarter; the name roughly translates as the moon that stays in the Old Quarter. The official opening takes place on September 11 at 3:00pm at the Old Quarter Cultural Exchange Center on Đào Duy Từ street, while the themed spaces run through the whole period of the program.

   The six stations and their themes:
50 Đào Duy Từ, Trung tâm Giao lưu Văn hóa Phố cổ Hà Nội — the story of the eighth-month full moon and its roots in wet-rice farming culture
22 Hàng Buồm, Trung tâm Văn hóa Nghệ thuật — traditional Trung Thu toys, folk games, visual arts and Vietnamese tea culture
87 Mã Mây, the Heritage House — the «Đón Trăng» (welcoming the moon) theme with mooncake and craft workshops
40 Lãn Ông — folk knowledge, medicinal teas and agarwood tea
2 Lê Thái Tổ, Trung tâm Thông tin Văn hóa Hồ Gươm — the art of the traditional lion head, including works by pupils and students
28 Hàng Buồm — the «Hương trầm với trăng xưa» space: agarwood incense under the ancient moon

   A separate strand of the program lives at 22 Hàng Buồm. The exhibition «Lưu trăng» opens there on September 11 at 4:30pm: young teams from the brands Thong Dong, Của Nả and The An Nam, working with artisans and researchers, have studied, remade and reinterpreted the old Hanoi toys — đèn ông sao, đèn cá chép, đèn cua, đèn tôm, đèn bọ ngựa, đèn kéo quân, đèn nhật nguyệt, traditional lion heads, tiến sĩ giấy, ngựa giấy, mâm ngũ quả and paper con giống figures. Visitors can build a lantern themselves, paint a giấy bồi papier-mâché mask and try folk toy-making. On September 13 the artists and artisans behind the exhibition run a workshop — bamboo frames, weaving, layering giấy dó and giấy điệp paper, silk (no starting time has been announced). On September 18 at 2:00pm the same space hosts the talk «Chuyện Trăng – Chuyện Nghề» about the Mid-Autumn Festival then and now, and about building a craft business on traditional foundations.

   The highlight is the «Đêm hội Trăng Rằm» (Full Moon Night) procession on September 25 at 8:00pm, on the exact full moon of the eighth lunar month. A column with traditional lanterns, lion heads, festival flags and folk characters sets off from the stage at 2 Lê Thái Tổ and loops through the pedestrian streets around the lake — artisans, schoolchildren, locals and visitors walk together, and you are welcome to join. For the first time the column will carry two lanterns modelled on Tháp Bút and Đài Nghiên, the writing-brush tower and the ink-slab stand at the entrance to Ngọc Sơn temple: the Đình làng Việt club, the program's co-organiser, built them by hand from wood, bamboo and layered giấy dó paper, each lit from the inside.

   Families with kids will get the most out of it: nearly every station has something to mould, bake or taste. Photographers will find old crafts set against heritage interiors, and anyone seriously curious about Vietnamese culture gets a month of living tradition with no museum glass in between.

   Tết Trung Thu grew out of the wet-rice civilisation of the Red River Delta: by the eighth full moon the harvest was in, and farmers read the autumn moon for signs of the season to come. Hence the festival's core motifs — moon-gazing (trông trăng), the family tray of fruit and sweets, and gratitude for the harvest.

   In Hanoi the holiday runs especially deep: lantern-lit celebrations in the old capital Thăng Long were recorded as far back as the Lý dynasty, almost nine centuries ago. The moon also holds the beloved legend of Cuội, the woodcutter carried to the sky by a magic banyan tree — children's lanterns, the story goes, light his way home. These weeks also bring the classic toys back to the Quarter's stalls: the đèn ông sao star lantern, the rotating đèn kéo quân, the paper scholar tiến sĩ giấy and bright tò he rice-dough figurines.

   Opening hours of the individual venues and entry conditions had not been published at the time of the announcement — check on site. All six addresses are within a few minutes' walk of each other in the Hoàn Kiếm area.

   A good September plan: walk all six stations early, then come back to the lake on full-moon night and meet the moon with the procession.