Hoi An Foldable Lantern-Making Class

The lantern workshop in Cam Pho

The class takes place in a family-run lantern workshop in Cam Pho ward, on the north-western edge of Hoi An Ancient Town. The room is filled with finished lanterns in every colour hanging from the ceiling, rolls of silk, bundles of split bamboo and the tools of the trade, so you feel at once that you are in a real craft space rather than a classroom.

You are welcomed with a cup of herbal tea while traditional music plays, a calm way to start before the work begins. Classes run several times a day from morning to late afternoon, so it is easy to fit the workshop around other plans. If you are wondering how to get to the workshop, it is around ten minutes on foot from the Japanese Covered Bridge, or a very short taxi ride from hotels near An Bang or Cua Dai beach.

The story of Hoi An's silk lanterns

Hoi An was one of the busiest trading ports of Southeast Asia between the 16th and 18th centuries, and Chinese and Japanese merchants who settled here brought the custom of hanging lanterns at their doors. Over time, local artisans developed their own style, with frames of thin bamboo covered in brightly coloured silk. Today lanterns are the symbol of the town and many families still make them by hand.

Your instructor explains how local people believe that hanging a lantern in front of the house brings luck, happiness and prosperity, and why the round, lotus and garlic shapes each carry a meaning. Knowing this story makes the evening walk through the Ancient Town, when thousands of lanterns light up the streets, far more meaningful. It is one of the most authentic cultural things to do in Hoi An.

Making your own foldable lantern

In the full class, you start from raw materials. You soak and bend the bamboo ribs into the shape you like, perhaps a lotus, a triangle, a diamond, a garlic bulb or a playful UFO, fix them to the top and bottom rings and test the folding mechanism. Then you choose your silk, cut it to size and glue it panel by panel onto the frame, with the instructor and translator helping at each step.

The result is a lantern you made with your own hands that folds flat, so it fits easily in a bag or suitcase. The class takes about two hours, and the host adds a small surprise gift at the end. Children as young as three can take part with a parent's help. If you are short on time, the express option starts from a ready-made frame and takes around ninety minutes.

Hoi An Ancient Town and its lantern nights

Hoi An Ancient Town, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1999, preserves wooden merchant houses, Chinese assembly halls, family chapels and the famous Japanese Covered Bridge along the Thu Bon River. In the evening the streets glow with lanterns, and on the night of each full moon the town switches off many electric lights so that lanterns and candles light the way, while small paper lanterns float on the river.

A morning or afternoon class leaves the evening free to enjoy this scene with your own lantern in mind. The best time to visit Hoi An is from February to April, when it is warm and dry; from October to December heavy rain can bring flooding to the riverside streets, which makes an indoor activity like this class especially welcome. The Ancient Town ticket for its historic houses is sold separately.