TL;DR: Not every mid-road shrine is preserved out of fear of divine punishment. A case study of the shrine of Princess Hoàng Phương on Vũ Trọng Phụng Street, Hanoi, shows that its preservation resulted from negotiation among the local community, authorities and a business, in which belief in the shrine's sacredness was one argument invoked. This is a single case, not enough to generalise to all mid-road shrines in Vietnamese cities.
Why can a small shrine sit in the middle of a road without being moved?
The short answer is that keeping or relocating a shrine inside a transport project is not a matter of "divine punishment" but the outcome of a process of social negotiation. The parties involved, including the community around the area, local authorities and the construction unit, each have their own arguments; belief in the shrine's sacredness is one of those arguments and sometimes becomes the most weighty.
The work by Nguyễn Gia Bách, Phạm Tuấn Huy and Phan Phương Anh, published in the Journal of Ethnology and Religious Studies in 2026, examines the case of the shrine of Princess Hoàng Phương located in the middle of Vũ Trọng Phụng Street, Thanh Xuân ward, Hanoi. The findings run counter to the familiar assumption: when the road was widened, the shrine was not narrowed or removed but was deliberately preserved and even expanded. This is noteworthy because in most cases urban planning tends to lead to the relocation or removal of sacred spaces.
What is the shrine of Princess Hoàng Phương case about?
The shrine of Princess Hoàng Phương sits on the Vũ Trọng Phụng Street axis, a busy street in Thanh Xuân ward, Hanoi. In 2017 the Hanoi People's Committee approved the plan, and construction began in 2018; the road was upgraded and widened. Before the widening, the shrine was hidden inside the grounds of the Hapulico company; after the road was opened, it became visible to both nearby residents and passersby.
Notable in this development is the role of urban infrastructure. Infrastructure is usually seen as an external force that erodes cultural value. Yet, according to the researchers' assessment, in the case of the shrine of Princess Hoàng Phương the positive role in recreating sacred space belonged to urban infrastructure. The land for the shrine was donated by the Hapulico company to serve the road opening under Thanh Xuân district's plan, and the shrine is tied to the root of an old banyan tree.
After the road was completed, the shrine gradually received more care and upkeep from the community along the street, becoming an indispensable part of their religious life. Although no official installation ceremony was held, the site still has a management board, caretakers, a ritual master and many visitors. On full moon days, worship at the shrine is lively.
| Party involved | Role in the development | Argument / action recorded |
|---|---|---|
| Hapulico company | Former landowner where the shrine sits | Donated the land to serve the road opening under the plan |
| Thanh Xuân district authorities | Planning unit for the road | Approved the plan to widen Vũ Trọng Phụng Street |
| Community along the street | Practitioners of worship at the shrine | Maintain worship, care and upkeep of the shrine |
| Shrine management board, caretakers, ritual master | Those directly operating the worship space | Maintain rituals and receive visitors |
The common folk reading often explains a shrine not being moved by fear of "divine punishment" or mysterious calamities. This case study points to a different mechanism: the parties negotiated, and the result was that the shrine was kept and even expanded. This is the study's reading, not a claim made by folk belief.
What does the cult of sacred trees and tree spirits mean in Cadiere's records?
To understand why an old banyan root tied to a shrine carries such weight in negotiation, one must look at the cult of sacred trees, a long-standing layer of belief in Vietnam.
Léopold Michel Cadière (1869-1955), a French priest and researcher who lived for many years in central Vietnam, devoted many research works to Vietnamese folk beliefs. His series "Croyances et pratiques religieuses des Annamites dans les environs de Hue", published in the Bulletin de l'Ecole francaise d'Extreme-Orient in 1918, opens with a section titled "Le culte des arbres", recording sacred trees, tree spirits and related worship rituals around Hue. This is field material by an observer living on site, recording what he directly witnessed.
In a 2004 article in the Journal of Religious Studies, Đỗ Trinh Huệ remarks that Cadiere worked from the real evidence of life, from things seen and heard, from tree roots, stones and plants, not only from texts. Đỗ Trinh Huệ also notes that Cadiere knew both Vietnamese and Han characters, which allowed him to approach the depth of Vietnamese belief.
In folk belief, old trees are often seen as dwelling places of spirits, and felling a sacred tree is considered taboo. Cadiere recorded rituals related to trees around Hue, but his records are limited to the area around Hue in the early 20th century and do not represent all Vietnamese people.
At the shrine of Princess Hoàng Phương, the old banyan root is closely tied to the shrine. The presence of the old tree beside the shrine forms a sacred spatial complex to which the community is attached, and this helps explain why keeping the shrine carried weight in negotiation.
What is Philip Taylor's re-enchantment framework?
Philip Taylor, in the 2007 collection "Modernity and Re-enchantment: Religion in Post-revolutionary Vietnam", proposed a framework for understanding the revival of religion and belief in Vietnam in the post-Doi Moi period. According to the collection's summary, Taylor's opening chapter criticises explanations of religious revival based only on the market or only on the state. The collection gathers anthropological studies of mediumship, village spirit worship, Buddhism and ethnic religions.
This "re-enchantment" framework helps place the case of the shrine of Princess Hoàng Phương in a broader context. Instead of seeing urbanisation and modernisation as forces that only diminish belief, Taylor's framework suggests belief can be recreated, adapted and take new forms in contemporary urban life.
Nhat Nguyet's reading: the case of a mid-road shrine can be read as a concrete expression of the re-enchantment process. When transport infrastructure expands, sacred space does not automatically disappear; it can be restructured, repositioned and continue to exist, even attracting more community attention. This is the site's interpretation based on Taylor's framework, not the conclusion of the researchers on the shrine of Princess Hoàng Phương.
What does this article not say?
This article does not retell stories of "accidents when moving shrines" as real events. Such stories are usually passed by word of mouth and have no verifiable source. The case study of the shrine of Princess Hoàng Phương records no such event and focuses on the negotiation process between the parties.
There is also no systematic survey of mid-road shrines in various Vietnamese cities. The existing research is only one specific case in Hanoi. It therefore cannot be generalised that all mid-road shrines are kept for the same mechanism. There may be cases of shrines relocated or removed that have not been recorded in research documents.
In terms of evidence, there is currently no quantitative data on the number of mid-road shrines in Vietnamese cities, nor any comparison between cities. This is a gap to be filled by further research.
So what does this say about how Vietnamese people keep sacred space?
Nhat Nguyet's reading: the case of the shrine of Princess Hoàng Phương shows that sacred space in Vietnamese cities is not a fixed category but the result of continuous negotiation. The community, authorities and businesses all play a role in shaping sacred space. Belief in the shrine's sacredness is an argument invoked in negotiation, alongside other arguments such as cultural value, history or community consensus.
The research by Nguyễn Gia Bách and colleagues shows that the outcome of this negotiation can be the preservation and expansion of sacred space, not necessarily its narrowing or removal. This is noteworthy in the context of rapid urbanisation, when infrastructure pressure is often thought to make traditional spaces disappear.
In folk belief, keeping a mid-road shrine is often tied to the notion that "land has its own guardian spirit, rivers have their own spirit", meaning every place has a spirit in charge, and touching sacred space needs consideration. This notion exists alongside administrative and technical arguments in decision-making.
To learn more about how Vietnamese people maintain belief in spirits in the context of modernisation, one can read Does modernisation make Vietnamese people believe less in spirits?, which analyses economic, social and cultural factors affecting contemporary religious life.
Conclusion
Keeping a shrine in the middle of a transport project is the result of a social negotiation process involving many parties, each with its own arguments. Belief in the shrine's sacredness is one of those arguments, and in the case of the shrine of Princess Hoàng Phương it contributed to the shrine's preservation. More case studies are needed to understand more fully how Vietnamese cities handle the relationship between modern infrastructure and traditional sacred space.
