Cardboard or mâché paper masks were very popular as children’s toys in traditional mid-autumn festivals. Layers after layers, paper was torn and added to the mould, dried and color-painted before a mask was made. These masks bear images of animals well-known to children like rabbits, buffaloes, pigs, etc. or literary characters like Monkey King, Pig in Journey to the West. To date, the craft of making cardboard masks is being retained and practiced by several families in the Old Quarter of Hanoi, Hảo Village (Hưng Yên Province), Đông Khê Village (Bắc Ninh Province).
A typical set of clay figurines features five characters: Buddha, Old Man, Child, Bird and Tortoise. Buddha, placed at the centre, is expected to teach children how to live kindly and decently. The old man and the child are symbols of generational continuity. The bird represents an aspiration for peace. The tortoise is a sacred animal and it symbolizes protection and longevity. Clay figurinesare made of dried clay covered with mollusk shell powder, and drawn with basic colors.
There were times at the beginning of the 20th century when this was an expensive type of toys of the capital city. With nothing more than recycled metal cans and containers, skillful artisans of the village of Khương Hạ in the past, using simple tools, were able to craft hundreds of models of toys. But to date, only some models remain, including whistles, drumming rabbits, butterflies, etc. Among them, the vessel that can navigate in water was particularly appealing to children. Nowadays, the sole practitioner of this craft is artisan Nguyễn Văn Mạnh Hùng.
As a toy, tò he, which is kneaded from rice powder, has a history of over a hundred years, made originally in the village of Xuân La (Phương Dực Commune, Phú Xuyên District, Hà Nội) to bear the images of birdsand storks. The name “tò he” is actually a phonetic variant of “tò te”, a sound produced from a small tubular trumpet-like instrument, which was later added to the pastry. Tò he is made from a mixture of rice, which is first steeped, ground, boiled, squeezed and then dyed with natural colors to produce loveable characters.