Vietnamese village dreams of taking 1,000-year-old ceramic tradition to world market
BAT TRANG - Nguyen Trong Hung smoothes his weathered hands over a 1.5-metre-tall porcelain vase spinning hypnotically on a potter's wheel. Years of practice make his movements look effortless as he creates a flawless work based on traditions passed down through generations. Bat Trang, a village on the Red River just outside Hanoi, has been producing ceramics and pottery for 1,000 years and is known throughout Vietnam for its quality and innovative wares.
And, with communist Vietnam opening its doors to a market economy, artisans like Hung, who were once forced by the government to work for pennies, are now fledgling entrepreneurs dreaming that their village will someday rival France's famed Limoges porcelain region. "All of the ceramic craftsmen in this village are very proud of the craft we inherited 1,000 years ago from our ancestors," says Hung, who began learning the trade at age five. "We hope with this project, more people in the world would know about Bat Trang ceramics and that would help to raise the sale of our products to a new height."
Hung's family and 26 others from the village of 400 ceramics producers have joined a pilot project - the Bat Trang Porcelain and Ceramics Association - that began promoting their wares in November. They hope that with some expertise from the Mekong Private Sector Development Facility - which is managed by a branch of the World Bank and which has pledged $150,000 over two years for a Web site, a trading centre and improved marketing - they can begin selling directly to department stores abroad.
Last year the village, which employs an estimated 30,000 people, exported about $23 million US worth of ceramics. It's a number that project head Len Cordiner hopes to double over the next three years. "I think it's ambitious, but it's very doable," Cordiner says. "To become a household name will take 10 or 20 years, but we may - at least I'm hoping - do reasonably well in the wholesale and retail trade." There are hundreds of craft villages scattered across Vietnam with skilled artisans making everything from rattan and wrought iron furniture to silks and lacquerware. But Bat Trang is special.
Its history traces back to a site outside the ancient capital of Hoa Lu in northern Vietnam where pottery artisans once gathered. In 1010, the craftsmen moved with the capital to Hanoi, and relics of Bat Trang pottery and ceramics have been unearthed at the site of an ancient citadel there - evidence that even Vietnam's royal families used wares created by the villagers' ancestors.
Bat Trang products have been found in shipwrecks across Southeast Asia and exhibited in museums worldwide. Foreign experts were surprised to find that some of Bat Trang's ancient techniques were more modern and sophisticated than expected, similar to relics found in Japan and China, says Duong Trung Quoc, a Vietnamese historian. "The cultural value of the product is its economic strength," he says. "It helps the foreigners understand Vietnam, and the quality of the product will help them to believe in other products made by Vietnam."
While still making each item by hand - right down to the intricate scenes and patterns etched on the porcelain - some families are innovating. Three years ago, Hung switched from a coal-fired kiln to one powered by natural gas. It's 50 per cent more expensive, but his pieces are more evenly heated and there is no more messy coal dust or time lost hauling in fuel.
Only 30 per cent of his output is exported now, but Hung's family earns about $6,370 annually, far above the national average of about $420 a year and a big change from the poverty and hardship of two decades ago. After the Vietnam War ended in 1975, the communists forced Bat Trang's villagers to produce bowls and plates that Hung says paid only pennies for a day's work, enough to buy just over three pounds of rice. It was when Vietnam started opening up the economy and promoting private businesses that the village began making money. Today ceramic-filled shops line both sides of the street leading into the village and a large outdoor market booms near the river.
Cordiner hopes to eventually begin tours to Bat Trang and to create a similar niche like Les Artisans d'Angkor has done in Siem Reap, Cambodia, where craftsmen make lucrative, high-quality souvenirs. "We're leveraging the history of the town and the history of ceramic production, which are closely tied," he says. "It's visible, tangible evidence of history."
The Associated Press - December 5, 2004
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