Young people in Vietnam have found their own ways to revive history, including writing books on ancient attire, creating 3D historical paintings, and restoring old houses.

Some choose to become researchers to retrace history for their work, while others are like ‘developers of history’ who create new products featuring historical vestiges.

They include a young man who pioneered the research of clothes of kings, dignitaries, and common people over the past thousand years; woodworkers who restore royal palaces, furniture, and decorative antiques; and artisans who create 3D paintings featuring ancient Hanoi and other sites.

Thousand-year-old clothes

Tran Quang Duc, 29, is considered the first man in Vietnam to study the clothes of kings, dignitaries, and normal people dating to over a thousand years back.

His research piece was published in a 400-page book entitled ‘Ngàn Năm Áo Mũ’ (A Thousand Years of Clothes and Diadems), which looked into the clothes worn from the Ly Dynasty to the Nguyen Dynasty, or from 1009 to 1945.

Researcher Trinh Bach called the book ‘a lucky save’ for Vietnam because it taps into an immense gap over a long time period.

Duc graduated from Beijing University in 2010 with a major in ‘Hán Nôm,’ which is the language and literature of the Chinese-transcribed Vietnamese.

It took him three years of research and field trips to complete the book. He read documents from South Korea, China, and Japan; studied artifacts; and visited pagodas to find statues and images of clothing items.

The clothes of Vietnamese people in the past looked like Chinese and Korean attire in general, but they were created differently, as they were not just a mere imitation, said Duc.

Vietnamese kings even banned common people from wearing the clothes of Chinese people and imitating the languages of the southern nations of Laos and Champa which was a kingdom centuries ago.

Restoring ancient houses

Carpenter Nguyen Huu Tai, who lives in Nam Pho Village, Phu Vang District, in the central province of Thua Thien-Hue, has been honored as ‘a golden hand’ in carving and encrusting furniture, royal decorative antiques, and ancient palaces in the provincial capital city of Hue, which is also the former capital of Vietnam.

Tai can restore a damaged ancient table to its former glory.

He has successfully restored many ‘nhà rường’ – an ancient type of wood house for both dignitaries and common people in Hue.

Carpenter Nguyen Huu Tai (L)

3D paintings of ancient streets

A group of young men in Hanoi decided to restore traditional images of ancient Hanoi by using 3D technology in paintings.

“What we see of ancient streets in Hanoi now is not what they looked like in the past,” said Dinh Viet Phuong, a member of the group.

Today’s streets do not exhibit the same spirit as they did before, he added.

After conducting extensive research on architecture, and a period of trial and error, they have created fantastic 3D paintings. These creations have attracted interest because they now look “more beautiful than they did.”

Old landscapes in the city, such as damaged street corners during the wars, lakesides, and citadels come to life in the 3D paintings.

The artworks have been praised by historians and researchers but above all, they are welcomed by the public. This helps the creators earn money for their business.

An elderly man once cried after looking at a 3D painting crafted by the group because it “looks exactly like the place where he used to reside.” In addition to 3D paintings, Phuong’s group continued to ‘attach’ themselves to history by creating another product: writing comic books about the legends of Son Tinh - Thuy Tinh (Mountain and Water Gods) and Hanoi – the land of soaring dragons.

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