To He Or Not To He….

Happy Easter to all our friends and family who celebrate this holiday!

For our next fantastic class with the Backstreet Academy, we learned how to make traditional toys called “to he” out of a homemade coloured dough (similar to Play Dough).

This form of Vietnamese toy making started in the 17th century. In those days, the art of making “to he” was only taught to men who passed it down to their sons, not to their daughters. “To he” toys were originally made for children attending festivals and special celebrations. Now, the toys are available daily in parks or at temples. It is becoming harder for “to he” makers to sell their creations because of competition from new toys and electronics, so modern figures like cartoon characters are made as well as the traditional ones.

There is a village in Vietnam called Xuan La  that specializes in “to he” toys. Almost everyone who lives in this village makes the figurines, including the children. Our teacher, Kha Dang Van, was from this village.   He learned the art of “to he” making from his grandfather and has been making them for over 20 years.  While it took us an hour to make 5, in that amount of time, Mr. Van can make 30!

When we went to the class, we participated in the whole process from making the dough to the final product.

First, the dough is made from a mix of glutinous rice powder and water. It is made from these ingredients so it’s not toxic if children eat them. Then it is formed into balls which are boiled.

Once the balls start floating in the water, the dough is taken out and colours are added. The main colours are yellow, green, pink, and purple. To colour the dough, the two are kneaded together.

Mixing the rice powder with water

The dough

Boiling the dough

Colours on the dough

Kneading the dough to colour it

Since the figures made of the rice dough turn mouldy after a few days, we also had the option of making our figures out of clay which are more permanent.

With the help of our teacher, we made chicks, dragons, roses, and unicorns. Our teacher also made us an Olaf snowman from the movie “Frozen” and a lady in a beautiful traditional dress.

Participating in this class was a lot of fun. It was really cool to learn how to make the “to he” toys and Mr. Van was so kind and funny, which made it even better . The Backstreet Academy is an incredible organization and I can’t wait to do more classes with them.