Tonkin’s giấy dó and its Chinese roots

There are various sources concerning the manufacture of Indochinese paper at the be­ginning of the 20th century: articles published in colonial magazines by engineers or by industrial managers working in Indochina, photographs and postcards taken by the colonial services; the work of Henri Oger, administrator of the French civil services stationed in Hanoi between 1912 and 1919; and during a later period and Dard Hunter’s book published in 1947, following a trip he made to Indochina. These sources provide a fairly precise idea of paper production and its social organisation in the region. This article presents the production of paper in the northern part of present-day Vietnam. It attempts to show the links between the Chinese and Tonkinese paper making.