A century of keeping the flame of traditional crafts alive.

Preserving and promoting traditional craft villages.
Traditional craft villages during the Tet holiday season.
Traditional craft villages are disappearing.
Developing tourism from traditional craft villages.

Enduring vitality

In Hong Dan commune, many long-standing traditional craft villages such as carpentry, blacksmithing , basket weaving, mat weaving, and rice paper making still maintain their activities. Having gone through countless ups and downs and facing competition from modern market products, these craft villages seemed on the verge of decline, or even becoming unsustainable. However, with the loyalty and dedication of the villagers to preserving their crafts, the unique characteristics of these villages have been maintained. The essence of centuries-old traditional crafts is still preserved.

Mr. Truong Minh Danh (Thong Nhat hamlet) has followed his father's carpentry trade since childhood. Although his life is not as wealthy as many others, he has always loved the craft and wanted to continue practicing it.

It's not difficult to find the blacksmith shop of Mr. Tran Van Tan and Mrs. Nguyen Thi Giang in Thong Nhat hamlet, as it's one of the few family-run blacksmith shops still burning brightly every morning amidst the hustle and bustle of modern life. Mrs. Giang recounts that she was originally from Can Tho , but due to fate, she married into this region. Since her parents-in-law were still alive, she knew that blacksmithing was a family tradition.

"Initially, many of my husband's relatives followed the trade, but gradually, due to the hardships and the dominance of modern machinery replacing manual labor, the traditional blacksmithing craft weakened, and many people abandoned the profession passed down from their ancestors. Only my husband and I remained, because of our love for the craft," Mrs. Giang shared.

Mr. Tran Van Tan (Thong Nhat hamlet) has been involved in the family's traditional blacksmithing trade for three generations.

Mr. Tan and Mrs. Giang's household is one of the few in Thong Nhat hamlet that has flexibly adapted to changing times by combining their family's traditional blacksmithing secrets with modern designs to compete with today's processed and imported products. Maintaining meticulous attention to detail and durability in each product, even though they only produce a few dozen items daily, their products such as cleavers, cleavers, planers, scissors, and sickles are still favored by local consumers and sought after by customers from all over for their famous " Ngan Dua knives " (Ngan Dua is the name of a town before the merger, now Hong Dan commune - PV).

Preserving the craft through love.

Ms. Nguyen Thi Giang prepares her goods every morning before taking them to the market to sell and wholesale.

According to the People's Committee of Hong Dan commune, there are currently 159 households in the commune maintaining traditional crafts such as blacksmithing, mat weaving, carpentry, and silkworm cake making, providing employment for over 500 workers. While these traditional crafts don't provide exceptionally high incomes that would allow people here to become wealthy, they offer stable employment, supporting families for generations and raising many young people to become successful adults with stable careers and lives.

Visiting the traditional craft villages in Hong Dan, one feels something very special: the people who preserve these crafts always have a deep love for their birthplace, unwilling to leave, and no matter how things change, they remain wholeheartedly committed to their craft.

Many people prefer to visit traditional blacksmithing families to buy knives and scissors for their household needs.

By adapting to the times, rural people in their 60s combine local consumption with showcasing their cherished traditional crafts to customers at inter-communal and inter-provincial markets. They even know how to promote their family-made products through social media platforms like Zalo and Facebook, or send their goods to fairs and exhibitions both within and outside the province, thereby increasing community engagement and maintaining wholesale and retail customers.

Products bearing the "Dao Ngan Dua" brand from the traditional craft village of Hong Dan commune are present at various fairs and exhibitions.

In this way, they have been making a significant contribution to "keeping the flame alive" for centuries-old craft villages, preserving unique cultural features and passing on to future generations the pride of continuing to preserve the traditional crafts of their families and homeland.

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