Ha Thai village is located beside National Highway 1A, about 30km south of Ha Noi. After passing through the old village gate, a peaceful rural life exists there, like any northern village, with lush green rice fields dotted with buffaloes quietly grazing. But what makes this place even more special is its ancient craft.
The village has nearly 700 families totalling more than 3500 people, 90 per cent of whom still follow the traditional profession in some way. Each family has a workshop to produce lacquerware and a shop to sell their products. The village has a worldwide reputation to protect.
These days, artisans are busy preparing for the Handicraft Products Fair to be held in Ha Noi in October. So it's an ideal time to learn about the craft and the families, to wander around and watch families crafting bowls, plates, trays and vases made of bamboo, wood and pottery. You can also find decorative pictures, boxes and chopsticks.
Lacquerwork was introduced from China centuries ago. Later, the French introduced Western paintings and techniques, particularly after the establishment of the Indochina Fine Arts Art College, in Ha Noi, in 1925. The lacquer technique was then applied to paintings, creating a new art form. The first examples were traditional in that they expressed scenes of natural beauty, and to some extent this has prevailed. However, nowadays artists also explore more contemporary themes.
Traditionally, lacquerwares were painted in black, brown and red. Today, new colours include white, blue, green and yellow to create a modern look. The main materials are wood, bamboo, rattan and, more recently, composite and ceramics.
The paint, which is the resin of the cay son (lacquer tree), is collected in northern Phu Tho Province. Men explains that to create lacquered products, artisans have to go through phases. They cover the objects that need to be lacquered with pure cotton cloth and coat them with paint, to make sure they are protected from shrinkage, and warping. Then they decorate the products by hand and polish them.
The job is meticulous and requires a lot of skill. Lacquer craft has a strange characteristic: if the paint is to dry quickly, the object has to be kept in cupboard out of wind and with high humidity. Spring and the rainy days of early summer are ideal.
The village may have a worldwide reputation, says Anh Thai shopowner Thai, but in the 1990s, lacquer painting exports faced a downturn due to fluctuations in East European markets. However, for the past years, thank to the State's new mechanism and opening policies, Ha Thai's lacquer painting industry has been strongly developing. A number of the former cooperative members become managers of large-scaled enterprises with annual revenue of billions VND. Ha Thai's products are so diverse with thousands of different designs and models satisfying demands of many international markets.
Source: internet
