Tò he is a popular, traditional toy for Vietnamese children and a symbol of Mid-Autumn Festival. These toy figurines are small but colourful and nice. They also have many different styles and shapes, and were even edible in the past. But as times change so to do the toys, so under no circumstances should they be eaten anymore.
A unique way to tell stories
Tò He or Vietnamese toy figurine is a traditional toy for children in Vietnam made from edible glutinous rice powder in variety forms of figurines attached on the top of bamboo sticks. Tò He was made and sold in public places like parks, gardens or historical attractions, especially on the occasion of festivals like Tết and the Mid-Autumn. This rare surviving traditional toy of Vietnam has been preserved as a cultural ambassador and continuously developed for hundreds of years.
Dating back to the 17th century, as there was no film or picture book for children, Vietnamese created Tò He as a way to visualize the characters in a story in order to make it more interesting and easy to imagine. The stories can be Vietnamese folk tales about the Moon, the dragon, national heroes, or sometimes they are just simple descriptions of animals to the kids so that they can recognize them. For examples, mice those have pointed noses and long tails always find ways to destroy crops, while striped fur tigers with sharp fangs are the ferocious kings of the jungle.
As the time gone by, Tò He in shapes of soldiers, teachers, and policemen got popular because at that time they were moral examples in Vietnamese society. In the next years, foreign movies and Japanese animes were shown in Vietnam, and the children then began to be attracted by fiction heroes like Sailor Moon, Gao Rangers or Sun Wukong – the King Monkey, therefore Tò He craft men started to create these characters. Nowadays, the model for Tò He is globalized, from Fruit Robos to the Minions, from Pikachu to the Angry Birds, Tò He has still been children’s favourite handheld toy. In general, the characters tend to be cute and childish rather than realistic like in the previous time. Some craftsmen also replace the bamboo sticks with ballpoint pens or pencils.
The key to success lies in the dough
The main ingredients to create a Tò He figurine is a mixture of glutinous rice powders, edible colors as well as bamboo sticks. According to the craftsmen, the key to success lies in the preparation of the dough. The craftsman first has to grind rice into a fine powder, then pours water into the powder and mixes it until it becomes a really sticky mixture that is easy to knead by hand. After that, they add edible food colour into the mixture and continue to knead the dough until the food coloring has fully incorporated in it and then steam it. There are seven basic colours of Tò He are vivid green, sea blue, red, purple, yellow, white and black. Finally, craftsmen shape the Tò He by hand and attach it to the top of a bamboo stick or a pen. The procedure of making Tò He is not so complicated but it requires the utmost patience from the craftsman. Besides, there is not a real lesson of Tò He making, sons and daughters get the skill from their parents solely through watching and self-learning.
Conclusion
Children are usually overwhelmed with the gift as Tò He from their parents. It is proven how they can see the world in just the miraculous manner. Even if they want, they can eat the whole Tò He. More importantly, they can learn many easy-to-remember lessons from long stories about historic heroes, legendary notes or just funny things made by tellers.
But now, it seems that the older generation are being attracted by this traditional toys. They get fascinated by the long stories and how Tò He survive today. In Spring Fair, Tò He attracts most visitors. On the Internet, many websites teaching to make Tò He appear. Vietnamese youth has concern of preserving & develop Tò He in future. In addition to society, they start with real actions of interesting combination: teaching unprivileged and handicapped children to make Tò He and then use the profits to maintain the service model. For passionate artists, they hold their presence at parks, fair & children events not only to teach them but also to connect them with Vietnamese traditional stories instead of modern things.
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