A first for us: Halloween in Hanoi
Halloween in Hanoi. (Screenshot from video below)
In the past few months, we’ve covered just about all aspects of our fall X-Pedition Hanoi workshop: we’ve talked about how the focus of the workshop is more documentary in scope than anything else, described our overnight excursion into the countryside, taken you inside the early morning chaos of Long Bien market and provided an intimate look at workshop leader Ibarionex Perello’s teaching philosophy.
The one thing we haven't covered is the one thing we'll be experiencing for the first time in our seven years of traveling to Vietnam: documenting Hanoi's Halloween street festivities. Partly that's because it's hard to write about something you haven't photographed yet. But it's also just timing — this is the first year our trip dates (October 24 – November 1) have landed squarely on top of it.
Halloween isn't a traditional Asian holiday, but it has caught on unevenly across the region. The most dedicated revelers are in Japan, where Tokyo's Shibuya district draws massive costume crowds every year. South Korea and Hong Kong both have their own nightlife-driven versions.
Vietnam's is younger and smaller in scale. The holiday has no religious or folk roots there — it arrived roughly two decades ago through international schools, Western media, and Hanoi's growing expat community, and it has stayed almost entirely a youth phenomenon rather than a family one.
In practice, it doesn't look much like Halloween in the U.S. There's no trick-or-treating, and it isn't a public or official holiday, so most of the country carries on as normal. What you will find, starting around mid-October, is a concentrated burst of costume culture centered on a handful of streets and venues. Hang Ma Street in the Old Quarter — already known for lanterns and festival goods — fills with pumpkin lights, masks and gothic decorations for sale. On the night itself, the Old Quarter and Ta Hien — the neighborhood's "beer street" — become the epicenter: students and young locals turn out in elaborate costumes, ranging from Vietnamese folklore spirits to Western horror-movie staples, while cafes around Hoan Kiem Lake Lake lean into the mood with candlelit, haunted-themed evenings.
It's the perfect time to get out on the street with a camera. Festivals and street parties tend to produce great scenes worth documenting. The best of it usually happens after dark, once the streetlights and shop signs take over as the main light source — worth having something fast on the camera. I'm genuinely excited to wander the street with my new-to-me Fujifilm 16mm f/1.4 (24mm full-frame equivalent) and document the scene.
Want to join us? We have one spot that has opened up for our fall trip. Learn more and sign up here.
