Co dong: the red banners and the painted posters
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Ride into any Vietnamese provincial town and the first colour you meet is red: a banner strung across the road, yellow letters, a date. At the junction there is a painted board with a soldier, a worker and a slogan.
None of it is nostalgia. It is a live state medium with a budget, a department and a calendar.
What is written on the banners?
A slogan tied to something specific. The format barely changes: yellow or white text on a red ground, strung across a road or fixed along a wall.
| Occasion | Date | What appears |
|---|---|---|
| Party founding | 3 February | Banners, red flags |
| Reunification | 30 April | The largest run of the year |
| Labour day | 1 May | Usually paired with 30 April |
| Ho Chi Minh's birthday | 19 May | Portraits and quotations |
| National Day | 2 September | Flags on every house |
| Army founding | 22 December | Military imagery |
Between the anniversaries the same boards carry campaigns: road safety, helmets, family planning, vaccination, exam season, a local election. The medium is old and the message is usually practical.
Who actually makes them?
Culture and information departments at province, district and commune level, which is why the style holds from Ha Giang to Ca Mau. Printers now supply many of the boards in vinyl; staff sign painters still paint the rest by hand.
The visual language stays fixed on purpose: flat colour, heroic figures, a red and yellow palette, a typeface that has not moved in fifty years. A poster put up this year therefore looks like an artefact and is not one.
When are the streets fullest?
The fortnight either side of 30 April, when reunification and Labour Day fall together and every public building flies flags. Early September brings the second wave. The run-up to Tet brings a different set of red, and the Tet guide covers what happens to a town in that month.
Outside those windows a provincial main road still carries banners, just fewer of them. The commune loudspeaker is the audio version of the same system, and it starts at about five in the morning.
Where are the originals?
In museums, not shops. The Vietnam Fine Arts Museum in Hanoi holds wartime poster art as art; the military and history museums show it as document. The Hanoi things to do page covers where each of those sits.
Wartime printings are genuinely scarce. Workshops printed them on poor paper, in the field, for pasting on walls. Anything that survived in good condition is a collector's object and carries a collector's price.
What is sold in the souvenir shops?
Reproductions, and there is nothing wrong with that. Shops in the Old Quarter and around Ben Thanh in Ho Chi Minh City print the classic designs on new paper, roll them in a tube and charge 100,000 to 300,000 dong.
Watch the story attached to it. A poster sold as an original, aged at the edges and priced at fifty dollars, is the version worth declining. The shopping guide covers what else gets sold that way.
Is any of it sensitive?
The posters themselves are not. They stand in public, carry an official stamp, and Vietnamese people photograph them constantly.
The sensitivity sits elsewhere. Keep the camera off military sites, police stations, checkpoints and border installations, and that holds even when you are aiming at the mural on the fence. The photography guide sets out the rest of the boundaries.
How should you read them?
As a running commentary on what the state wants this month, which makes them the most legible public text in the country. A road-safety banner in a district with bad junctions, a vaccination drive in a school month, a campaign about litter on a beach.
Once you can pick out a few words on them — the language guide is enough for the dates and the numbers — the banners stop being red noise above the traffic and start telling you what month it is.
FAQ
What is co dong?
The Vietnamese term for agitation and propaganda art — the painted posters and red banners produced by state cultural departments and put up on streets, at junctions and across roads. It is a working state medium rather than a historical one.
What do the red banners say?
Slogans, almost always tied to a date or a campaign: the founding of the Party, the anniversary of reunification, National Day, a local election, a road-safety or public-health drive. Yellow or white text on red is the standard format.
Are Vietnamese propaganda posters still painted by hand?
Some are. Provincial culture departments still employ sign painters, and hand-painted boards stand alongside printed vinyl ones. The style is deliberately conservative, so a poster made this year looks much like one from decades ago.
When are the streets fullest?
Around the fixed anniversaries — early February, 30 April, 19 May, 2 September and 22 December — and in the run-up to Tet. New banners go up a week or two ahead and stay for a while afterwards.
Where can you see original posters?
The Vietnam Fine Arts Museum in Hanoi holds wartime poster art, and the history and military museums display them in context. Original wartime printings are collectors' material and are not what the souvenir shops sell.
Are the propaganda posters sold in shops genuine?
Almost all are reproductions, printed recently on new paper and sold in the Old Quarter and around the Ben Thanh area. That is fine as a souvenir as long as nobody is charging you an original's price for one.
Is it a problem to photograph propaganda banners?
No. A poster on a public street is public. What you should not photograph is a military installation, a police checkpoint or a barracks, regardless of what is painted on the wall outside it.