Traditional craft villages in Vietnam

For a long time, craft villages have been important for the agricultural development in Vietnam. The first villages where the population at least seasonally pursued a craft were already found in the 11th century, particularly in the area of Hanoi. A wide variety of goods were manufactured ranging from food and everyday products to skilfully designed silk and religious articles. Products were directly sold at local markets or via retailers distributed to the capital or even abroad. From their beginning craft villages were closely interwoven with the economic network. In the communist era they remained to be a main pillar of the Vietnamese economy. Since the introduction of the economic reform policy workforce and production volume of craft villages are continuously growing.

Bát Tràng ceramic village

Bát Tràng, a small village in the north of Việt Nam, is about 13 kilometers southeast of Hà Nội center, on the other side of the Red River. The village is famous for ceramic and pottery products of high quality.

The 700-year-old Bát Tràng village is located 13km away from Hanoi's center. It's an ancient village, which is very famous for making ceramic products. Many of these ceramic products have been exported for years, as a result, they are a good income for the locals. There is a ceramic market in the village, where we can buy ceramic tile paintings, flower vases, tea pots and cups, bowls, plates, spoons, even ceramic dogs. Some famous characters in the Vietnamese literature like "Chí Phèo" and "Thị Nở" were also created in an amusing way, same as a traditional Vietnamese fortune teller wearing sun glasses. Not only the local houses where we can see how to mix material, make and paint ceramic products, but there are also classes where we can learn how to create a vase or anything from clay that we want, or just to paint the ready-made products.

Vạn Phúc – Silk trade village

Located on the bank of the Nhuệ River with velvety mulberry groves and rice fields, Vạn Bảo fiefdom has been known as mulberry planting and silkworm breeding village since the 9th century. According to a local legend, progenitor of the profession is Madam A Lã Thị Nương, the beautiful and well-mannered daughter of the land of Cao Bằng.She descended the profession to villagers and helped “seven villages of La and three villages of Mỗ” to become the leading silk weaving villages in the country. Since long ago, the local people have honored her as tutelary god for their villages. Specialty of Vạn Phúc textile village that is known everywhere include “lissome bud silk” with high durability, plain silk, embroidered silk, satin silk, etc. All the materials help people to feel their clothing airy and cool.

Son Dong statue sculpturing village

For over 300 years, the craft has been preserved and developed by devoted and talented artisans. One of them was Nguyen Duc Dau (1898-1988). In 1986 when the national economy started the renewal process, Dau coordinated with Ha Noi College of Fine Arts to organize training courses in sculpturing statues for people in his commune. Since then, the craft has developed and the village now has 300 households engaging in the craft and about 4,000 skillful sculptors. The main products of the village are statues of Buddha, saints, national heroes and sacred animals for worshipping, such as horses and cranes. Here, the artisans only use the core of jackfruit trees to create statues because this type of wood is quite durable and rarely cracks which is suitable for making worshipping objects. During sculpturing, each artisan has his own secret to make unique products. Particularly, the artisans in Son Dong have become famous for the technique of sculpturing the faces on the statues. Thanks to the artisans’ skillful hands, the statues look refined with details of soulful and merciful expressions. In Son Dong, the technique on red-lacquer trimmed with good is rather sophisticated which uses gold and silver litmus. To further develop the traditional craft, the villagers have invested in modern machines and advanced technology, and specialized production. Each workshop takes responsibility for one stage, such as sculpturing, painting and designing.

Chuông Conical Hat Village

Located in Thanh Oai District, Hà Tây Province, Chuông Conical Hat Village is well-known for its special product “nón” by many foreign and domestic visitors. This small village is crowded with people who not o­nly come here to place orders but also witness the process of making “nón”. The main material for making “nón” is palm leaf. Chuông villagers have to choose the white shoots from Phú Thọ Province or “nón” leaf from Hà Tĩnh Province. Bamboo hammocks and conical hats must be imported from other provinces. Not o­nly old people but also children in this village know how to make conical hats. They take advantage of leisure after harvest time to make “nón”. This occupation helps villagers increase their incomes, improve their living standards and contribute to bettering their home village

Bronze casting village of Ngũ Xã

Ngũ Xã village is located on the side of Trúc Bạch Lake in Ba Đình District nowadays, and it is known as the craft village with traditional bronze casting profession. Legend has it that Zen Buddhist Grand Monk named Không Lộ who lived in the Lý Dynasty (1009-1225) was progenitor of the profession. He took best workers of five villages from the original Kinh Bắc area (Bắc Ninh Province today) to Thăng Long to establish a copper casting village called Ngũ Tràng Xã.

Since the 17th century, Ngũ Xã Village has become famous with many domestic appliances such as boilers, trays, and basins. Other famous products made by Ngũ Xã Village include Buddha statues, bells, incense burners, among which the greatest work is the bronze statue of Trấn Vũ God in the Quán Thánh Temple in Hà Nội.

The statue is 3.96 meters high, four tons in weight and was completed in 1677. In the temple of the village, there exists a Buddha statue with 5.5 meters high, weighting 14 tons, completed in 1952. In the 19th century, there were 90% of households in the village which ran the same copper casting job with some sophisticated technologies and know-how handed down from generation to generation.

Dong Ho Painting Village

Folk painting is o­ne of the special cultural features of Vietnam. Since the ancient time, there have been a lot of painting villages, such as Dong Ho village (Bac Ninh province), Hang Trong village (Hanoi), Kim Hoang village (Ha Tay province), Nam Hoanh village (Nghe An province), Sinh village (Hue city), and other villages in the south and mountainous areas. Dong Ho is located on the southern side of the Duong river (40km to the east of Hanoi) is one of the villages that preserves ancient cultural relics of Kinh Bac area (Red river delta, north of Vietnam). Dong Ho painting is printed by hand on the surface of wooden plate. Each printing colour has its own engraved board. The black one is printed last. Thanks to this way, paintings are made in bulk and do not require sophisticated techniques.

Tay Tuu flower village blossoms

Although the village of Tay Tuu was one of the last to switch from traditional farming to cultivating flowers, following the lead of villages like Ngoc Ha and Quang Ba, it has blossomed into being considered the flower granary of Hanoi Tay Tuu has become famous for its large variety of beautiful flowers that not o­nly grace local markets but are also exported abroad, and all the households in the village have become involved in this industry. Farmers in Tay Tuu used to specialise in traditional agriculture but this yielded a low income. In the 1990s, however, the farmers changed to growing flowering plants and spices. These crops brought in good profits and the standard of living in the village improved markedly. The Tay Tuu villagers first planted daisies imported from Taiwan and Singapore, but now are concentrating on growing roses on a large scale. 

Dong Xam Silver Village

Dong Xam Silver Village is located in Hong Thai Commune, the north of Kien Xuong District, Thai Binh Province. From 1681 up to now, the silvercraft skills in Dong Xam villages (Hong Thai district, Kien Xuong province) are still reserved as secret, inherited skills and like other traditional handicraft, the silvercraft of Dong Xam village has had to face a lot of challenges. During the feudal regime, to be able to inherit and learn the silvercraft skill was very difficult, moreover, the difficulty in good exchange activities between areas within small consumption market at that time had limited the silvercraft development.

After the war, from 1954, Dong Xam craftmen joined together with great determination to revive the traditional workshops. Cooperatives were opened to produce goods for the State such as cigarette trays, standing oil lamps, and fine-art boxes. During this period, Dong Xam silver products were mainly exported to Eastern Europe and Russia.