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Brick in the wall: Local researcher Nguyen Viet Hong introduces a piece of earthenware brick dating back to the 9-10th century. A small part of Hong's collection was lent to the Kim Lan Ceramic History Museum for display.
by Nguyen Khanh Chi
An old-style tile-roofed house appeared in the middle of a large open public ground next to the headquarters of Kim Lan Commune People's Committee. Hesitation stopped me for a while before I entered the first community museum in Viet Nam.
The ceramic wares inside glass cabinets quickly caught my eyes. There were too many pieces to comprehend during a short visit.
I intended to take my eight-year-old son to nearby Bat Trang Village, which is known far and wide for pottery making. However, a talk with some other passengers on bus No 47 from Ha Noi's centre convinced me to change direction.
Kim Lan, the last stop of the bus route, is actually one of the oldest pottery villages in the land of Thang Long (the old name of Ha Noi). Kim Lan Village, several kilometres across the Red River from Bat Trang Village, was where the craft originated before it spread to Bat Trang.
Previously Kim Lan commune was located on the bank extending out to the Red River at the site of the current Kim Lan community. However, annual flooding, especially the large floods between 1970 and 1971, eroded the land. This also exposed the earthenware and ceramics that prompted the subsequent archaeological excavation.
Kim Lan doesn't enjoy as vibrant a business as Bat Trang as its residents focus on farming and pottery, while those living in the latter see pottery as their main livelihood. Thus, visitors to this craft village should not expect a bustling scene.
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History lesson: The Kim Lan Ceramic History Museum is a real treat for those interested in learning about the history of Vietnamese pottery.
Nevertheless, the Kim Lan Ceramic History Museum is a real treat for those interested in learning about the history of Vietnamese pottery.
The museum opened in March last year thanks to the efforts of late Japanese archaeologist Nishimura Masanari and five elderly village craftsmen. It was granted a Bui Xuan Phai – Love for Ha Noi 2013 award in the Job category.
Valuable collection
The 300 pieces of earthenware not only create a vivid picture of the village's past and present, they also provide a glimpse of the country's pottery-making history.
"The artefacts displayed inside the museum make a significant contribution to the study of Viet Nam's ceramic and pottery history," said Dr Bui Minh Tri of the Viet Nam Academy of Social Sciences.
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Tourist attraction: The museum has so far attracted mostly local students as well as Thai and Japanese tourists. — VNS Photos Truong Vi
Tri said archaeological studies revealed that Kim Lan villagers were involved in the craft as early as the 9th century, although it flourished between the 13th and 14th centuries.
Pieces ranging from bowls, plates and tea sets to animal figures, tiles and bricks are numbered and described in Vietnamese, Japanese and English. The variety of techniques used, from blue and white colouring to celadon and paired white and brown glazes, offers insight into the different eras of production, which stretched from the 7th to 18th century.
Vietnamese ceramics entered the international market in the 14th century, when they were exported to the rest of Southeast Asia as well as Egypt, Iran, India and Japan.
A shipwreck off Hoi An, which retained a cargo of Vietnamese ceramics dating to the 15th century, further proves the extent of international trade at that time.
Kishimoto Kosei, a Japanese sports and culture critic, donated ceramics from the shipwreck such as underglaze-cobalt jars, bowls and boxes to the museum.
There are also goods from other Southeast Asian countries, such as a set of earthenware from Cambodia, round jars from Indonesia and vases from Malaysia.
A set of ceramic liquor bottles made in Okinawa and an intact Dutch coffee bean grinder from the 19th-20th century revealed the unique features of ceramic wares from other regions.
Head of the Research Group Nguyen Viet Hong lives about 500m away. Visiting his house with the help of the museum guards, I was amazed to find out that the artefacts lent to the museum only formed a small part of his actual collection. Sets of bronze coins hung on the walls; other objects were contained in glass cabinets and boxes.
"Based on the excavated artefacts and structures, we identified that there was ceramic production around the Bai Ham Rong archaeological site between the Ly and Tran dynasties," the 78-year-old researcher said.
"The large number of bronze coins that I gathered indicates that there were also bronze casting workshops at the site between the 16th and 17th centuries."
Many tour companies have taken tourists, mostly Japanese and Thais, to see the old man's collection after visiting the museum. He has even been asked to sell it, but he always refused.
"I learn about our history in order to leave it to my offspring. If I sold them, it would be like selling my ancestors' sweat and efforts," Hong said. — VNS

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Bau Truc pottery brand in Vietnamese tourism

Bau Truc Pottery Village in Phuoc Dan Town, Ninh Phuoc District is known as the only Cham pottery village in the south-central coastal province of Ninh Thuan and one of the most ancient in Southeast Asia.
Kneaded by hand, Bau Truc ceramic products are standalone items demonstrating the talent and unique craftwork of the artisans in the village.
Preserving traditional pottery




According to current statistics, Bau Truc Pottery Village has 570 households with 4,034 people, including 100 households producing pottery.
Ceramic products produced by artisans in the village are divided into two types, viz. domestic-use pottery and arts and handicraft pottery. 
Domestic-use pottery, such as jars, ovens and pots, mainly serve residents of rural areas and are consumed in the provinces in the south-central region and Ho Chi Minh City. 
Meanwhile, with diverse designs and patterns, craft pottery products, including flower vases, pitchers, lamps, decorative lights and statues imbued with Cham culture, have been popular not only domestically, but also on the international market.
The pottery industry in Bau Truc Village began a long time ago and is famous for employing strictly manual labour. 
Bau Truc artisans make use of the shaping “style” of Cham folk arts, using simple tools such as bamboo sticks, arca and snail shells to engrave different patterns, including symmetrical geometric figures, rivers and plants, into their pottery.
Two important factors demonstrating the uniqueness of Bau Truc pottery are raw materials and skilled potters. The clay used to make Bau Truc pottery products is taken from the waterfront of the Quao River. 
The potters smash the clay into pieces and mixe them with fine sand and knead the mixture. The amount of mixed sand depends on the size and uses of each product.
The artisans do not use spinning wheels to shape their products. They move their hands around the clay to create different shapes and patterns. After finishing an item, the products are exposed to the sun until they are dry and are then polished and burned.
Pottery products in Bau Truc Village are not baked in kilns. Artisans cover them with straw and firewood to bake them. With their skilful colouring and baking techniques, the potters give their products unique colours, resulting in the typical traditional style of the village.
Artisan Truong Thi Gach, 78 years old, said, “I started learning to make pottery when I was eight years old and my life wad devoted to this trade. There are few people having passion for pottery; therefore, I will make a greater effort to train younger generations in order to preserve the Cham culture’.
Developing the Bau Truc pottery brand in association with tourism
Phu Huu Minh Thuan, Head of Bau Truc Pottery Village Co-operative said that each year there were over 6,000 visitors to the village—70% domestic and 30% foreign tourists, mainly from Russia, Japan, Germany and Australia. 
“The village has focused on developing handicraft pottery products to meet the aesthetic needs of visitors as well as preserving unique identities of Cham culture,” Thuan shared.
Currently, the pottery cooperative displays more than 1,000 products of different types; many of them have sophisticated patterns, becoming favourites of a large number of customers, both domestic and foreign. 
At prices ranging from VND15,000 to VND3 million per product, the Bau Truc cooperative have sold around 35,000-40,000 pieces of pottery each year, earning a total turnover of over VND800 million.
In order to preserve and develop Bau Truc pottery, the Ninh Thuan People’s Committee implemented a “marketing strategy project for Bau Truc handicraft pottery for the 2010-2015 period, with a vision to 2020” with a total investment of VND26.3 billion.
In recent years, the province has paid much attention to supporting artisans in train younger generations and building a specific exhibition area for displaying and introducing Bau Truc pottery. 
In addition, the authorities enhanced communication on mass media to widely promote the products and marketed them at trade fairs and events on souvenir pottery products as well as providing capital support for households in the village to enhance their production and business activities and to expand their domestic and export markets.
Thuan also shared that the co-operative was building a project to export a large shipment of Bau Truc pottery to the UK late this year. The event is a good sign for the development of the Bau Truc pottery brand.
The relevant agencies are submitting a dossier with the aim of having Bau Truc pottery recognised as a part of the nation’s intangible cultural heritage. The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism will soon prepare the dossier for submission to UNESCO for recognition as Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding.
Nhan Dan
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Southern potters face bleak future

Many pottery makers in the Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta province of Vinh Long have stopped or cut back production because orders have declined in recent years.

The province has for long enjoyed the advantage of having plenty of the clay containing aluminium sulphate, which is needed to produce red terracotta products, as well as a skilled pottery workforce.

The province's famous red terracotta products have been exported to many countries and territories, including the EU, US, Australia, South Korea and Japan.

However, the global economic slowdown has seen a sharp reduction in export orders in recent years.

Duong Hoang Son, who had three kilns in Long Ho District's Thanh Duc Commune, stopped production three years ago. He said the province's pottery sector was at a standstill. The more they produced, the greater the losses local potters suffered, he said.

Son said that a little more than a decade ago, it was a prosperous period for potters in the province with production unable to meet demand.

Ho Minh Chau, owner of the Van Thang Pottery enterprise which has three kilns in Thanh Duc Commune, said orders for the province's famous red terracotta products had been declining over the last five years. He had closed one kiln and was operating the other two at half capacity.

Difficult
He said a set of three pots that cost VND60,000 (US$2.8) ten years ago continued to fetch the same price today, while its production cost, including labour, materials and transport, had increased three times, leaving producers in a very difficult situation.



When things were going well, buyers paid potters in advance, but now, they could only receive money three to six months after delivery, he said.

"Many producers now lack capital, are in debt and facing bankruptcy," he said.

In 2000, the province had more than 130 pottery makers, most of them located in Long Ho and Mang Thit districts, according to the Vinh Long Pottery Association.

During its pottery heyday, the province produced about 50-60 million pottery products of various kinds each year and earned average annual export revenues of US$40 million.

Last year, just 12 million pottery products were made, down 20 per cent against 2011.

The province has just 32 pottery producers now. Of these, one-third do not operate regularly.

Ho Van Vang, chairman of the provincial pottery association, said: "Orders have been declining every year and this year they have declined further."

Besides, the industry was mired in several problems including small-scale production, outdated production techniques and lack of export information, he said.

The province's pottery products are mostly exported via traders in the southeastern province of Binh Duong. —VNS
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vietnamese pottery history

This period pottery stub but is a very important step in the development process in general ceramics and pottery in particular later



  If the previous period (primary and middle Neolithic period) small quantity of pottery, poor in kind, mainly composed of several types of pot with bell mouth, mouth stood, mouth meniscus and bottom round, tapered bottom, flat bottom. Then step into this period, along with the emergence and development of the turntable, the type of pottery is becoming more plentiful and varied. A variety of container shapes and sizes with different birth. That is the kind of pot, pot, jar jar, cups, dishes, pots, jars, bowl, pitch ... Each type includes many different variants. Many beautiful ceramics with complex geometry born, like ceramic mouth polygons, the average convenience, ceramic base, ceramic ear ...

Ceramics period mighty King

In addition to containers, we also create many different kinds of exquisite ceramics with various shapes and different tools (pencil grid, car shed, metal cooking pot pouring, molding tools and weapons). Pile of jewelry (bracelet, earrings). The type of object art, ceramics unclear uses (foot fork seals, ceramic boxes, ceramic cow horns) and all kinds of intelligent air.

With the turntable, with plentiful experience and hands with increasingly ingenious, this time people knew modified the old shape in the period before the new products much more unique. For example, preliminary structure shaped ceramic middle Neolithic period (ceramic bell mouth, mouth stood, cupped mouth, neck, bottom round or flat bottom), is to this period on the ground that the person acquiring the model prior to the interference of the new creation to fit new needs, such as patchwork heel, add the ears, change the ratio between the part and create new categories. This is a prerequisite for the development of ceramics as now.

Hung Vuong pottery after turntable

The waves generated in creating mainly concentrated in the shaping of ceramic mouth. For example, the Phung Nguyen ceramic bell mouth like the mouth, stood up to the edge of the mouth is thicker and more 1 2 edge applique outside the mouth; Go Mun special people prefer these types of ceramic bell mouth Goy ... And while improving oral composition, the ancients always pay attention to adjust parts such as the neck, body, bottom, so that the shape of the ceramic substrate to make healthy, balanced and harmonious.
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