Back Heritage » Vietnam » [Photos] Family Albums Depict the Everyday Lives of Vietnamese People in the Late 1800s

Following last week’s photo essay on railway construction, this week’s images focus on the everyday lives of people in northern Vietnam. 

The following shots come from five old albums left on a shelf in the cellar of my family’s small country house in the south of France. They lay forgotten for decades and were only re-discovered after my grandfather passed away.

Although it’s difficult to know exactly when or where most of these photos were taken, it’s clear they were taken during my ancestors’ travels around the north of Vietnam.

Many were likely taken during the railway construction, with photos from Lang Son Market and nearby areas featuring. Others are more quotidian: a tailor’s workstation; monks praying at a pagoda; children and nuns posing in front of a building; a group of Chinese mandarins; or an iconic shot of water buffalo in the fields.

In three of these photos, a French colonial explorer poses in the midst of village life. Who this man was is a mystery. Was he my other great-great-grandfather, Vézin, or perhaps another contractor working on the railway? He’s certainly not Louis Vola, another of my ancestors — you can see him on the photo taken in front of the Brasserie Hommel in Hanoi, second from the right.  

My favorite photo of them all, though, is the first in this series: one of my grandfather posing in the garden at a very young age, holding a cane and wearing a hat that probably belonged to his own grandfather.

While I am not proud of my great-great grandfathers’ behavior in Vietnam, they did leave an interesting photography archive for us to look back on and provide an opportunity for us to reflect on our troubled family history.

See more below:


Related Articles:

An Ancestral History of Northern Vietnam’s Railway Construction

[Photos] Here's What Hanoi Looked Like In 1905

[Photos] Emperor Bao Dai's 1942 Offering of Worship to Heaven and Earth


Related Articles

in Vietnam

A Meandering Photographic History of the Red River and Long Bien Bridge

Upon its completion in 1902, Hanoi’s Long Bien Bridge was the second-longest of its kind in the world — it was only a few hundred meters shorter than Brooklyn Bridge in New York City. 

in Vietnam

My Great-Great-Grandfathers Were in Indochina in the 1880s to Build the Railway

We often see archival images of old Hanoi, but these photos are different — they are personal. The following shots, which come from a collection of five photo albums, are the only surviving record of ...

in Vietnam

[Maps] A Brief Cartographic History of Hai Phong From 1898 to 1968

Known today by the moniker "City of Red Flamboyant Trees," Hai Phong has always been one of Vietnam’s most prominent port cities ever since its establishment in 1888.

in Vietnam

[Photos] 18 Shots From the Streets of Nha Trang in the Late 1960s

White-sand beaches stretch beyond the horizon, towering mountains sit silently in the distance: for the most part, the natural landscape of Nha Trang remains relatively unchanged between the late 1960...

in Vietnam

[Photos] A Dao Mau 'Mother Goddess' Ritual in 1920s Nam Dinh

Situated in Nam Dinh City, Phu Giay is considered the largest center of the Dao Mau 'Mother Goddess' religion across all Vietnam. There are more than 20 temples and mausoleums in the area dedicated to...

in Vietnam

[Photos] A Final Family Journey Through Vietnamese Landscapes in the 1800s

This is the third and final collection from my family’s photography archives, and it is also the most important to me. Beyond my family’s colonial past, it is this last series of images that have infl...

Partner Content