Calligraphy.

A calligraphy work in my friend's house

Vietnam has a joint border line with China- a big country with various cultural traits. Calligraphy is one of the remainings of Chinese when being swept out of Vietnam after 1000 years unable to defeat this small neighbours.

As usual, Vietnamese often come outside, look for the "ông đồ" ( or calligraphy mentor ) and ask for words. The mentor will say something neccessary about the words people want, and then write it, slowly and beautifully, on the red paper. The word you can see above is "Shine", and interestingly enough, it's my name- Minh :)

Here is another picture I captured when a mentor was writing his work. People gather around and wait for their turn to get a word. It's now take about 2$ for one word on the red paper.