Bat trang Village
Bat
Trang is an old, well established village in the Gia Lâm district of Hanoi. It
is about 13 km from central Hanoi.
It
is famous for producing a unique style of ceramics called Bat Trang Porcelain.
Bát Tràng is well known throughout Vietnam for its beautiful ceramics.
Bat
Trang porcelain and pottery is a type of ceramics made in the village of Bat
Trang, in the suburban outskirts of the northern Vietnamese city of Hanoi. The
village is located in an area rich in clay suitable for making fine ceramic.
Bát Tràng ceramics are considered some of the best known porcelain products in
Vietnam besides those of Chu Đau, Đang Nai, Phu Lang, and Ninh Thuan. During
the past centuries, Bat Trang china products have travelled in European trading
ships to all parts of the world.
Bat
Trang, in the several past centuries, mainly made worshipping objects, then
produced house-utensils, including bowls, plates, vases, cups and pots. The
village has recently diversified its products, producing many items of fine art
ceramics and high quality porcelain.
Bat
Trang ceramics have also been shipped to many countries, such as Japan, the
Republic of Korea, the US and EU member countries. Many ancient ceramics of Bat
Trang are being kept in major museums in the world, such as the Royaux museum
in Belgium and the Guimet museum in France.
Since
2002, Bat Trang artisans have promoted their co-operation in the Bat Trang
Ceramics Association to boost production and marketing. The association helps
Bat Trang people and ceramics businesses get information about the market,
learn about new technology, trading ways and opportunities for their trade in
order to raise their competitiveness.
The
association has established a centre to promote its exports and is building the
trademark of “Bat Trang Vietnam – a 1,000-year tradition”.
The
Bat Trang village festival is held annually at the middle of the second month
according to the lunar calendar, which usually lasts for seven days.
Dong Ho Village
Dong
Ho village, formally called Mai village, belongs to the Song Ho commune, Thuan
Thanh District, Bac Ninh province which is located along the southern bank of
Duong River Dyke, 30 km to the East of Hanoi.
Dong Ho village is famous for an old and
special art form called Dong Ho. This art is attractive to the local and
foreign people alike. Coming here visitors watch the artisan’s produce pictures
using carved boards painted with various colors of ink.
Each
family is a workshop. Because the picture is colorful and each color needs its
own carved board, each family has many boards. Typically a single picture needs
5 or 6 boards. The artist draws the portion of the picture represented by one
color on paper which is then glued to the board. The board is then carved to leave only that
portion of the picture. The carving or
sculpting is deep and strong.
The
paper used to print the picture is potash paper which is made by a traditional
technology. The main material is from the wild potash trees from the mountains
nearby. Then it is polished by Diep, made from a small shell pounded, ground
and cooked with rice white and splendid color.
The
printing process follows a strict regimen: each carved wood stamp is painted
with a color and pressed on the paper to form the picture. The colors are made
from natural materials: black from the charcoal of dried bamboo branches and
leaves, red from soil of the surrounding
hills and mountains, indigo from forest leaves, blue from verdigris,
amber from turpentine, yellow from aniseed, orange from gardenia flowers, and
glitter white from ground egg and sea shells. The colors and materials used in
Dong Ho folk painting are very durable; they dim very little with time or sun
light.
Dong Ho pictures have many themes, some are
used for worship, some tell old stories, some depict historical people and
events, some show happy ambitions. Many of these pictures are highly valued and
they are indispensable in Vietnamese houses during the Lunar New Year festival
or “Tet Nguyen Dan” in Vietnamese. Visiting Dong Ho village during the 12th
lunar month is especially interesting because you will be able to catch a
glimpse of Dong Ho's past. On the 6th, 11th, 12th, 21st and 22nd days of the
12th lunar month, Dong Ho hosts a Tet market. Here, prominently displayed,
you'll find the festive prints that made Dong Ho famous.
Dong Ho paintings for Tet decoration often
model animals that stand for each of the 12 years of the lunar zodiac. The fat,
comfortable and happy mother pig among her offspring, the smiling buffalo, the
imposing tiger or the alert mother hen are all expressions of the desire for a
happy and comfortable life of the Vietnamese, past and present.
As well as being decorative, these prints are
designed to convey popular fables, social values or historical struggles. Some
are both instructive and humorous. For example, "Mouse Wedding",
depicts a fat cat demanding bribes of fish from a mouse bridal party. “Catching coconuts” and “Teacher” depict old
educational practices and “Jealousy scene” satirizes the polygamy system of
old. Above all, the pictures of pigs with Ying and Yang circles on the bodies
are the most famous.
Dong Ho art is not as sophisticated as
Japanese block printing, nor as splendid as Chinese woodblock prints. It
reflects the Vietnamese traditional society and the simple ambitions of the
people. It is homey, honest and pure like the soul of Vietnamese farmers.
Van Phuc Village
Van
Phuc is situated on the bank of Nhue River, 10km from Hanoi on the southwest
motorway. The village is in the centre of Ha Dong Town, Ha Tay Province, and
the biggest silk production village in Vietnam. The sound of looms has filled
Van Phuc for a thousand years, and is a touching sound to villagers when
returning from far away.
The
main road is surrounded by greenery and ponds, and colourful bolts of silk
drying on the road. In fact, the village's fine silk, commonly known as Ha Dong
Silk, has inspired many poets and composers to write about its beauty.
Visitors
to the silk village in Van Phuc commune, Ha Tay province, are impressed at
first sight. The village is busy with activity and one can hear the sound of
power-looms in every home. The days of working strenuously with traditional,
manual looms are past, and the village's weavers each operate three large
power-looms using a small electric motor instead. Design of Ha Dong silk
patterns has also been computerized, which has allowed designers to reduce work
time from 20 days to a rapid 3 days per pattern.
Many
families in the village have built their own shops at the top of the road to
the village, along with eye-catching signs in both Vietnamese and English.
Saleswomen are friendly and can speak a little English and French, which has
been positively received by foreign visitors.
Given
that each power-loom has generated one weaving job (not including supplementary
jobs such as spinning, dyeing and yarn joining), the craft village can create
more than 1,000 jobs each year.
"Although
Vietnam invests billions of dong each year in every state textile enterprise,
the efficiency they gain may fall behind the craft in Van Phuc. Meanwhile, more
than 1,000 craftspeople in the village have worked hard to survive in the
market-led economy and at the same time preserve the traditional occupation.
However, the State has not yet given them much attention," said the Van
Phuc Commune Party Secretary. This feeling may be shared in their craft
villages struggling to sell their products throughout the country.
Non Nuoc Village
Location:
is located in Hoa Hai Ward, Ngu Hanh Son District, Characteristics Perhaps no
one comes to the Five Marble Mountains without visiting Non Nuoc Fine Arts
Village, where nationwide and worldwide famous marble handicraft works are
produced.
The
Non Nuoc Fine Arts Village has a three or four-hundred-year history. This is
affirmed by some steles which still remain at some ancient pagodas in the Quang
Nam Province. Currently, there is a temple of the °Marble Fine Arts Founders°
at the well-known spot of the Five Marble Mountains, and many ancestor
anniversary activities take place largely in this village on the sixth day of
the first lunar month every year. Many gardens of statues have their back to
the mountains. So, the overall artistic spaces of these gardens are arranged
skillfully thanks to the outside landscape.
Visitors
will be very interested in and surprised by the artistic stone works exhibited
here. Polished, petite and sophisticated statues are presented with both
traditional and modern motives and taken to parts of the world by visitors.
Lifeless
stone has become a lively thing with the human spirit through the craftsmen of
the Non Nuoc Fine Arts Village. It is certain that this process takes place in
many work stages, including extremely difficult ones. The happiness with the
completed works, the admiration of connoisseurs and also the benefits from the
job united the people of this fine arts village in their careers.
This
article written by Lanh Nguyen from Vietnam Heritage Travel
For
original article, please visit:
No comments:
Post a Comment