Dong Nai Craft Villages Realising Potential

Earthen pot producing Buu Long Village in Bien Hoa City has centuries of history. Clay in Buu Long area has special properties; thus, pots have very eye-catching looks. At present, around 10 families are still living on earthen pot production. The career almost fell into oblivion but devoted craftsmen made the career prosperous again. It is painstaking to make earthen pots. Clay is dried up and ground before being mixed with water to make pots. This is the most difficult work and if producers lack experience, pots will be cleaved when it is exposed to the sunlight for drying. Potmaking is a wholly manual work; thus, skills are decisive. Buu Long sesame-coloured earthen pots need special experience and skills to be made and baked. Foreigners are very keen on this kind of pots.

 

Apart from earthen pot production, Buu Long villagers also carve stones. Stone sculptors have to come to mountains to take rock. There is a wide variety of rock, especially blue rock. Although this kind of rock is not shiny or veined, it is very beautiful when it is used for interiors, design and sculpture. Blue rock taken from Chau Thoi Mount is made into valuable works by skilful hands of sculptors.

 

Buu Long villagers can keep the stone sculpture because they adopt modern techniques into production. Combining skilful hands with modern equipment gives wings to Buu Long products to every corner of the nation and the world like Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan and South Korea. For years, Tan Phat Hung, Tin Nghia, Tan Vinh Quang, Nhat Thanh and others have made the name of the stone-sculpting village more popular.

 

About 3 km from Bien Hoa City, the capital of Dong Thap province, a village in Vinh Cuu District is very famous for grapefruits. Tan Trieu grapefruits have many varieties, with different properties. Tan Trieu grapefruits have known worldwide since 1970s but they were more popular with Bien Hoa grapefruits. In Tan Trieu, visitors can erect camps, hold picnics and taste attractive grapefruits.

 

Apart from grapefruits, earthen pots and fine-arts rocks, potteries are also the pride of Dong Nai province. Dong Nai pottery, which is more commonly known as Bien Hoa pottery, is produced by villagers along the Dong Nai River. There are two main pottery complexes: one on the left bank of the Dong Nai River and the other in Bien Hoa Practical Fine-arts School. Since the end of 19^th century and the start of the 20^th century, pottery technology was strongly developed when fine-arts potteries were begun to be made. Dong Nai is also the new home to many migrants across Vietnam; thus, potteries are made in multiform. Dong Nai potteries are different from those from Bat Trang and Tho Ha, the top-notched producers of potteries. Partisans in Dong Nai use chemical enamels very early, not natural enamel made from stone powder as in Tho Ha and Bat Trang. Clay in Dong Nai is also different from other parts of the nation and this also makes potteries different from others. Peculiarities make Dong Nai potteries attractive to domestic and international consumers.

Aside from economic values, craft villages also play active roles in allocating employment in the province, accelerating industrialisation and modernisation of rural areas and creating new products for domestic and international markets. They also create many jobs, increase incomes for the people and give a boost to socioeconomic development.

 

Knowing economic value of craft villages, the People’s Committee of Dong Nai province adopted many special policies to develop handicraft villages. With budgets from the central government, the province has instructed industrial promotion agencies to collaborate with local authorities to open handicraft training courses for countryside people, support handicraft enterprises and individuals to expand their activities, guide handicraft production units to invest in new production lines, scale up production and renew technologies and sciences.

 

In the context of deeper international economic integration, many handicraft enterprises in the province focus more on production and development strategies. Knowing that, the People’s Committee issued the Decision No. 461/QD-UBND to approve the project to “restore and develop handicraft villages in Dong Nai province from 2006 to 2010”, which is combined with environment protection, employment restructure, national cultural preservation and income gap reduction.

 

Efforts of the Dong Nai People’s Committee have created jobs for many people to increase incomes. Authorities have given wings to the dream of restoring and developing handicraft villages.