Mai Xuân Thưởng Garden

The Mai Xuân Thưởng garden, in Hanoi

The Mai Xuân Thưởng garden is a pleasant green space of Hanoi, marked by a great sculpture of a golden lotus, symbol of purity and spiritual elevation. The Hanoi audio-guided tour stops here to evoke this garden that pays homage to Mai Xuân Thưởng, hero of the Vietnamese resistance, and the place of the lotus, national flower, in the culture of the country.

The golden lotus and the homage to the hero

On your left stands out a great sculpture in the shape of a golden lotus, major artistic element of the Mai Xuân Thưởng garden. This work symbolises purity, spiritual elevation and harmony, deep values in Vietnamese culture. The lotus, national flower of Vietnam, is here represented in all its splendour, with its delicately sculpted petals and its bright golden colour. It embodies at once the natural beauty and the spiritual link that the Vietnamese people maintain with nature: growing in the mud but rising pure and magnificent above the water, the lotus is, in the Buddhist tradition very present in Vietnam, a symbol of purity of the soul and of path towards wisdom. The garden, for its part, pays homage to Mai Xuân Thưởng, a hero of the Vietnamese resistance against colonisation in the nineteenth century, a scholar become leader of a patriotic uprising and executed for his commitment, remained in the national memory as a figure of courage and fidelity to the homeland. Laid out near the West Lake and the great places of power, this peaceful garden offers lawns, paths and bodies of water, where the inhabitants come to walk, to rest or to practise tai chi in the morning. In the evening, it comes to life with groups of young people who dance and gather. A symbolic garden and a patriotic homage, the Mai Xuân Thưởng garden is a fine stop of the discovery of Hanoi.

What to see

You admire a great sculpture of a golden lotus, national flower of Vietnam, symbol of purity and spiritual elevation that rises pure above the mud; the garden pays homage to Mai Xuân Thưởng, hero of the nineteenth-century Vietnamese resistance, and offers, near the West Lake, lawns, paths and bodies of water where you practise tai chi in the morning and where you dance in the evening. The Mai Xuân Thưởng garden is a symbolic space of Hanoi. It is a fine stop, to be explored on foot.

Practical information

The Mai Xuân Thưởng garden lies near the West Lake, in the Ba Đình district, in Hanoi, reachable on foot. It is a public garden freely accessible, embellished with paths, lawns and the golden lotus sculpture, lively in the morning and the evening. You discover it during a walk.

What does the golden lotus of the Mai Xuân Thưởng garden symbolise in Hanoi?

Purity, spiritual elevation and harmony, deep values of Vietnamese culture; the lotus, national flower, grows in the mud but rises pure above the water, a Buddhist symbol of the soul and of wisdom. The garden itself pays homage to Mai Xuân Thưởng, hero of the nineteenth-century Vietnamese resistance.

Where is the Mai Xuân Thưởng garden in Hanoi?

Near the West Lake, in the Ba Đình district, in Hanoi, in Vietnam.