Dragonflies of Vietnam !

As I entered the hotel room in Hanoi, I noticed a painted bamboo dragonfly balanced on the tip of a pyramid!
How did the hotel staff do it? I picked it up and put it back. It wobbled and balanced itself beautifully on it again.  "I must find out about these beauties." I said to myself. I found that these are special individually handmade bamboo dragonflies made in Vietnam.

Why dragonflies? No one could really answer my question and then I searched the internet and found that there are at least 14-15 varieties of these winged beauties in Vietnam.  They are rampant and can be seen specially near the water bodies.  They are also associated with the myth that they were once dragons and so are held in high esteem and associated with prosperity and good luck in this region.

At first these winged insects look very simple but the specialty of these bamboo dragonflies is their ability to balance themselves over the tip of a pencil or finger.

                      balancing on the tip of finger                                                             on the tip of pen !                                                             

The making of a dragonfly involves a lot of precision and calibration.  The bamboo is first peeled and the body is made. This material needs to be slightly thick and sturdy enough to be able to take the weight of wings yet be light enough to balance on a fingertip.   The wings are made of a slightly thinner part of bamboo.  Small holes are drilled in the body and wings glued in.  The glue is then left to dry.

Now, is the test time. The dragonfly is supposed to balance on a chopstick. If not, then it is scraped here and there till it balances.  Each dragonfly is individually checked for this precision. The dragonflies are then painted in different colors and allowed to dry.

                              painted dragonflies                                                         My art  :)                                                                   

I saw many designed ones also in the shops, that gave me the idea of doing some by myself.  I got a few plain ones and painted them. The colors started getting wiped off from the dragonflies once they dried so I had to seal the pattern with an acrylic sealer.  They are for the time being intact and seem to be doing quite well !