Episode 3: Sustaining Hue’s traditional craft villages

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Awakening ancient values

Facing the gradual decline of the bronze casting craft village in Phuoc Duc, Nguyen Phung Son and his younger brother were determined to give the casting craft a new face. Leading me through his family’s workshop, Son said that nowadays, if traditional craftspeople do not change their thinking, innovate technology, and understand the market, they might give up.

With this mindset, after a period of contemplation, Son ultimately chose bronze casting as his livelihood. His reason for continuing the family’s traditional craft was to keep his promise to his father, artisan Nguyen Van Sinh, who had forged and nurtured him with the finest essence of the craft. His father had also created a launching pad for his love of the craft when he studied mechanical engineering at the polytechnic university. At his family’s casting workshop, Son not only invested in new machinery and technology to cast large bells and bronze statues, but also trained young craftsmen to create additional handicraft souvenirs at competitive prices compared to products from elsewhere. Currently, Son has a display counter showcasing his family’s craft products in Hue City at 15 Le Loi Street, Thuan Hoa Ward. When I asked him about economic efficiency, Son replied: “We can make a living.”

This is one of the typical stories. Without changes in production thinking, Hue’s craft villages can hardly overcome the “traditional threshold.” Traditionally, Hue’s craft villages produced items to serve royalty or ceremonies, but they may lack practical application in modern life. This makes products difficult to sell, costly, and unable to compete with imported foreign products.

“No one denies the delicate beauty of Hue crafts, but if products aren’t designed to suit modern needs, they’ll struggle to survive. We must breathe ‘new life’ into each traditional product for them to survive and develop,” shared Phan Ngoc Hieu, a young entrepreneur with the Thanh Tien paper flower brand.

At the Loc Thuy cajeput essential oil craft village, I recently learned about a young person with very new thinking who has revitalized this craft village. That person is Mai Thi Thuy Van.

Seeing the cajeput essential oil craft village gradually declining, Thuy Van proposed in early 2023 that the government help establish the Loc Thuy Cajeput Essential Oil Cooperative. The concept of the “Loc Thuy Cajeput Essential Oil Cooperative” wasn't just to form a production business unit, but also an address opening many opportunities for the craft village to be defined, renewed, and adapted to the market. To date, the cooperative has 35 members (households). All are committed to investing in technology and equipment to refine essential oil, ensuring standard quality, patterns, and “Loc Thuy Cajeput Essential Oil” origin traceability. Not only producing traditional products, Van also acts as a “conductor” supporting product diversification with various compact and beautiful designs meeting customer needs. Thuy Van also helps cooperative members transition to a green and circular economy by utilizing waste products to produce incense and medicinal cajuput, hand wash, insect repellent oil, and fertilizer.

Three indispensable pillars

As for Mr. Phan Quy Phuong, Vice Chairman of Hue City People’s Committee, although Hue’s traditional craft villages have great cultural value, they must be integrated into the local economic strategy to develop sustainably. To preserve and develop craft villages, in recent years, the city has issued many support policies, such as Decision No. 1133/QD-UBND dated May 12, 2022 on announcing the list of specialty products and traditional craft villages of Hue, Decision 06/2020/QD-UBND dated January 22, 2020 on recognizing traditional crafts and craft villages of Hue, Plan 143/KH-UBND dated March 7, 2023 on implementing the One Commune One Product (OCOP) program linked with craft villages. The City approved the project “Developing tourism for crafts and traditional craft villages” for the 2022-2030 period.

Additionally, the city has focused on enabling relevant departments and agencies to provide capital support, improve product quality, and protect intellectual property for craft villages. The city has also promoted their presence on e-commerce platforms and organized OCOP fairs to connect supply with demand and find markets for craft village products.

However, according to many experts, these policies need to be strengthened and better synchronized to avoid the situation of being “present but not powerful”, failing to address specific implementation details. In particular, there is an urgent need to establish craft village clusters and concentrated production zones to reduce costs and enhance connectivity.

Also related to craft village innovation, recently on the sidelines of the Startup and Innovation Support conference in Hue City, Mr. Truong Thanh Hung, Vice Chairman of the National Startup and Innovation Advisory Council, shared: “It's not about replacing all manual skills with machinery, but using technology to support design, communication, and quality control. Most importantly, teaching craftspeople how to approach new markets.”

Currently, some Hue cajeput essential oil refining craft villages have applied modern distillation lines combined with safe glass extraction bottles, while attaching QR codes for customers to trace origins. Thanks to this, these products are now present in supermarkets and shopping centers in major provinces and cities.

Besides this, human resources, especially young people, are also decisive factors. Many artisans suggest the government should open free vocational training classes for local youth, combined with career guidance from high schools, to “ignite the flame” for craft villages.

“Today, learning a craft isn't just about acquiring skills but also learning how to think and predict markets. If there's a mechanism to keep young people in the villages with stable income from their crafts, then we won't have to worry about losing these traditions,” affirmed Luong Thanh Hien, an artisan from Phuoc Tich pottery village.

Developing craft village tourism

In the context of difficult competition based on quantity or cost, linking Hue craft village products with experiential tourism and digital transformation is a feasible and sustainable path.

A friend of mine working at Hue City Travel Association shared that craft village tourism is becoming a trend globally and in Vietnam, particularly. According to surveys by travel companies, foreign tourists want to find the cultural values of craft villages, experience artisans' exquisite craftsmanship, and learn about the production process of distinctive local products. Evidence shows that community tourism linked with craft villages has been one of Hue City’s tourist-attracting products.

For example, the “One Day as a Potter” model has been implemented at Phuoc Tich village since 2023. Visitors experience pottery molding, coloring, visiting ancient wooden-beam houses... Thanks to this, Luong Thanh Hien’s craft workshop receives 5-7 tourist groups monthly to visit and listen to pottery stories. This model has also been implemented by Loc Thuy Cajeput Essential Oil Cooperative for over 6 months. Many visitors to Loc Thuy craft village come not only to buy products but to experience and understand the cajeput essential oil refining process from fresh raw materials input to finished products. The models have helped enhance the connection between tourists and products. Accordingly, household income in craft villages has also increased.

At Bao La weaving village in Dan Dien commune, woven products like trays, baskets, bamboo bags... have been redesigned as gift products, combined with “Made in Hue” branding, with beautiful, environmentally friendly packaging. Thanks to this, products that were once only sold to domestic retail customers and local tourist spots now reach markets nationwide.

Equally important is applying digital platforms - like Sinh village paintings, Thanh Tien paper flowers. Many artisans are cooperating with young people to open online stores, selling paintings on Tiki, Shopee, Facebook... Videos filming the printing process and introducing Hue culture attract thousands of views, creating positive viral effects.

“If you know how to tell stories about products, incorporating historical-cultural elements, then every item from Hue’s traditional craft villages is an attractive story. That’s something modern technology cannot fake,” shared Mr. Nguyen The, Chairman of Hue City Folk Arts Association.

At the macro level, Hue City needs to establish a common brand for the entire craft village ecosystem, including a unified identity, an international marketing strategy, to cooperative programs for tourism, commerce, and culture. The success of cultural tourism craft village models currently in Asian countries, such as Jeonju Village (South Korea), Chiang Mai (Thailand), Jingdezhen (China), even Hoi An (Quang Nam), Bac Ninh, and Dong Thap are valuable reference for Hue craft villages to develop their own unique direction.