by Bùi Hoài Nam ON DISPLAY: A bamboo fish from the Taboo workshop, an innovative centre of the traditional craft. Photo courtesy of Taboo Hội An local Võ Tấn Tân and his craftsmen created the Taboo Bamboo Workshop in the middle of the Cẩm Thanh nipa palm forest as a sustainable bamboo craft and preservation centre in the ancient town in central Việt Nam. The workshop's skilled craftsmen make more than 200 unique traditional designs, from furniture and toys to household commodities and decorative items, under a low-carbon emissions model. “This is the first sustainable, low-carbon production site in Hội An,” according to Tân. “We create products with our hands instead of relying on mass production via machinery. Our craftsmen design new models every single day.” AT HOME: A bamboo house built by Taboo, which also offers craft tours. Photo courtesy of Taboo “Our workshop doesn’t make replicas of the same items, instead creating unique products depicting the village and Hội An as unforgettable destinations. Our innovative designs and creations are all hand-made; we only use mechanical tools to smooth the finished products Products from the Taboo workshop have been designed with recycling and environmentally-friendly consumption in mind, and Hội An has been promoting it as the first “zero” waste site in the country. “Our craftsmen come up with innovative designs from bamboo, with products including cups, toys, lanterns, electric car bodies, bicycles, furniture, and interior décor,” Tân said. “Traditional production techniques have been passed down through the generations, and most villagers have some level of experience in making handicrafts from bamboo and nipa palm leaves.” He was the first in Cẩm Thanh Village to create a bamboo bicycle and also built the first-ever bamboo electric car. The bamboo craft has been his passion and he hopes to see Cẩm Thanh become greener and a popular, well-known destination for bamboo crafts. …
Holiday time black christmas tree
Stories told from threads on a loom
by Minh Nguyễn With colours as words and patterns as metaphors, ethnic Chăm artisans in the Mekong Delta province of An Giang passionately create stories through weaving. Saymah is working on a handloom when I visit her family’s craft shop. She is among the experienced weavers of the Chăm community in Phũm Soài Village in Tân Châu District. Her husband, Mohamad, is the third generation of a family pursuing traditional handloom weaving. Their shop is small but full of handloom fabrics with colourful and charming patterns. Weaving is the language they use to create stories from threads. SPINNING TALES: The couple continue to tell stories through the tradition of Chăm weaving. VNS Photo Hồng Minh Colours as words, patterns as metaphors “Learning how to weave is like learning a language. You need to start with basic words,” the 58-year-old Saymah says. By words she means colours. The five basic colours of Chăm fabric are red, white, yellow, blue, and black. Not only do Chăm weavers learn to remember and classify these colours as warm and cold tones, they also learn to dye the yarns themselves. In the past, colour pigments were made from natural plants around their home: green from leaves, red from resin, yellow from tree bark, and black from ebony fruit (scientifically named Diospyros mollis ). According to Saymah, what sets the Chăm traditional textile art apart from, say, its northern ethnic counterpart, is the dyeing technique. Chăm people have traditionally dyed their threads before setting up the looms, while weavers in the north have usually done it the other way around. BEYOND APPEARANCE: Patterns as metaphors of nature, work, and life. VNS Photo Hồng Minh Nowadays, natural dyes are rare, with local people turning to colourants instead. But the lessons from hand-made colours help Chăm weavers select the right shades and blend them into their products. Chăm weavers also speak through patterns as metaphors of …
Red Dao ‘capital’ is mountain wonderland
The commune, with thousands of hectares of terraced rice fields and topped with the “grey hat” of Chieu Lau Thi Peak, is considered the capital of the Red Dao ethnic group, which numbers about 450,000 people in Vietnam alone. The area is also the starting point for the Chay River, which runs like a giant snake through the mountains and forests. It takes half a day riding on motorbikes to reach Tan Phong village in Ho Thau commune from Thong Nguyen commune through a 35km distance of terraced fields, forests and grass fields surrounding other Red Dao villages, Nam Khoa, and Nam Ai. Then we feasted our eyes on the green mountain forests surrounding yellow terraced rice fields shining in the sun. Our rest was marked by relaxing talks with local farmers, who were busy harvesting their fields. After long hours of bumpy travel, we finally had lunch in a homestay in Tan Phong village, which had a spectacular view over a valley. Truong Cong Dinh, chairman of Ho Thau Commune, said the focus was on developing ecological tourism, even risky tours of Chieu Lau thi Peak, while preserving the cultures of tribal people. “To further promote tourism, the authorities use financial resources from the province and districts to advertise local destinations, pay for train tourism and encourage households to open homestays,” he said. “Hoang Su Phi district authorities have called for investors to open more restaurants, hotels, hold motorbike races and establish trekking routes from Chieu Lau Thi peak to nearby primitive forests.” Trieu Mui Mui, owner of Homestay Chan Mui, one between two experimental homestays in a project titled Improving the Livelihood of Ethnic Minorities through Community-Based Tourism sponsored by Swiss-based Helvetas Intercooperation and the Center for Rural Economy Development, said her family had received hundreds of tourists in the past year. “It makes us busier, but happier, to offer guests a close look at a Red Dao family,” she said, “The guests …
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