How Craft Villages Pump $1 Billion Into Vietnam Every Year | Big Business | Business Insider
[Music] at the beginning of every year this Vietnamese Village turns into a sea of pink factories crank out 50 000 incense sticks every single day in preparation for tet the Lunar New Year ly everyone here makes their living from this craft this is reportedly one of more than 5 000 craft Villages across Vietnam here in Dulce villagers hand weave fishing baskets and Dong Tao they breed Birds known as Dragon chickens and embarking they print traditional Vietnamese paper thumb craft Villages are part of a government program called one commune one product which promotes locally made Goods like this silk Village in namcow Studies have shown the program has created thousands of jobs and exports are already reportedly generating about a billion dollars a year we traveled across Vietnam to see how villagers are preserving traditional crafts thank you here's how workers make incense and guangfukao incense sticks have two parts the core stick and the incense powder once the bark is harvested farmers bring the bunches here to be weighed and sold just on the road villagers carefully split the bark into smaller sticks and lay them out to dry in giant Stacks around town next they head to the chopper [Music] with the machine's help they can chop tens of thousands of sticks in a day [Music] which can be up to 16 inches long then their truck to tease incense Factory Here workers sort the stems into bunches then they hand dipped the ends in colorful buckets of dye they're dyed either pink which represents the Lotus Vietnam's national flower or red for the country's flag carefully the bunches are fanned out to dry in preparation for the Tet holiday workers blink at the village in these pink bunches over on the other side of the factory workers make the incense powder in this Village locally harvested canarium sap is mixed with charcoal for the signature black color the exact proportions are secrets this mixture gives the sticks their fragrance when burned [Music] bye once the pink sticks are done drying workers feed them into one of these machines it automatically coats on the incense powder [Music] um workers dry the sticks a second time they need good temperature and lots of sun because if the incense is wet it won't burn foreign next workers package up the sticks in plastic today tea sells mostly to wholesalers within Vietnam at 65 cents a bunch but like most of this Village tea used to sell primarily to India about 300 tons a year those sticks used in religious worship were shorter and tea added no fragrance because Indian buyers preferred to add their own India was Vietnam's biggest customer by some estimates 90 of India's incense Imports came from Vietnam but in 2019 India partially banned imported Vietnamese incense sticks paired with younger Generations leaving for other jobs incense industry struggled wanting to keep the century-old tradition alive tea got creative first he designed the product to better reflect Vietnamese tastes he cut the sticks longer dyed them pink and added fragrance then he added machines to speed up production the workers went from being able to make 500 sticks a day by hand to 50 000 using machines T also launched a Cooperative with 12 other incense makers in the village [Music] that way he could recruit more workers outside his village next he set out to find new buyers inside Vietnam to replace his lost business from India [Music] so tea got his product registered with the national office of intellectual property now his products are traceable with barcodes making it easier to find domestic wholesale buyers today T sells about 80 tons domestically each year that's less than a third of what he sold to India but he has ramped up production for Vietnamese customers now his Cooperative Factory is the largest in the village tea now has enough capacity to prepare for his biggest event of the Year Tet incense sticks are used in religious ceremonies in temples year round the line of incense smoke is said to connect the spiritual world to this one yeah Vietnamese Lunar New Year usually in January or February um the factory runs all year but in the lead up to tet T earns 40 more in revenue and his team makes 200 more pounds of incense decks daily he also makes yellow brown and red sticks as well as incense coils and cones [Music] they spread the sweet Aroma of the Kwang fukau incense Village across Vietnam foreign it's not just crafts that are made in these Villages across Vietnam Vu is a third generation dong Tao chicken farmer he's been looking after these birds for over 20 years but how does this Village preserve this unique breed and why is each Bird worth thousands of dollars foreign Village well the exact origins of the breed are known they've been around for hundreds of years and were thought to be bred originally for cockfighting due to their thick and strong legs these days the birds are a more decorative breed that's often eaten for its unique meat um the dramatic look of dong Tao chickens means that they've been important gifts for years originally presented to royalty they're now reserved for special occasions such as tet Vietnamese New Year foreign [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] that means that from the 500 checks just 15 could qualify to be sold as gifts so what are the criteria that these chickens need to meet to be worth thousands of dollars [Music] foreign when preparing the chickens for sale or competition a lot of work goes into looking after them and roughly a month before they're fed a special high protein diet and their legs are washed gently in a mixture of tea and salt physical appearance isn't all about the feet either every part of their look is equally important when it comes to grading from symmetrical wattles and earlobes to uniformly covered shiny black feathers [Music] foreign foreign while many of the birds are sold off around the holidays for their meat the really high value chickens are often kept by the farmers and entered into Beauty contests the longer the chickens live the larger their features and so grade a dong Tao chicken could live for six or seven years what is that um while the chicken's popularity is mostly still contained to Vietnam interest around the world is growing and in April 2018 802 dong Tao chicken eggs were seized by police at Ataturk airport in Istanbul after they were found being smuggled into the country in a custom-made suitcase these eggs were valued by police at two thousand dollars each and show that no matter the price these chickens reach there will always be those willing to pay this Village is also determined to preserve an ancient craft paper making in zungal was the heart of the economy for Generations traditional Vietnamese zaizo paper dates back to the 13th century and it was widely used for printing historical records and making folk art but by 2020 75 of Vietnam's paper was Factory made [Music] as demand for handmade paper dwindles younger people haven't shown interest in preserving the craft but some like Fon vantham are trying to change that Tom is one of the last traditional zayzar paper makers in zungo he's been working in one of the last handicraft Villages for 40 years today he employs a small group of people they soak the bark and cut it into two foot long pieces and separate the good kind from the bad grinding is one of the few steps that is done by a machine [Music] but it still requires some physical effort Jam pushes the bark with an oath stick to help it move through the grinder until it turns into a fine pulp sap from strips of wood from the mall tree will make the glue for the paper soaking it in water helps release it Tom was 20 years old when he started making size of paper he learned the trade from his father and takes pride in keeping traditional techniques alive foreign who still makes the wooden frames that shape the paper from scratch [Music] his friends can last up to three years and are essential to getting the paper just right if the dimensions are even slightly off the paper could be ruined decrease yourself begins forming the paper she's been doing this job since she was 12 and her years of experience make her one of the best workers here she dunks the cream into the pulp mixture and sips it until a perfect layer forms on top it may look simple but it's a skill that requires years of training she uses a bamboo screen to separate the paper it is also made by hand those with high has been crafting these intricate folding screens for over 40 years he's a sixth generation bamboo maker and only sells to local artisans [Music] Duo is so fast and precise she can make 1300 sheets in one day she brings the stacks over to the Press it slowly squeezes the excess water from the paper Jam has been using the Press since he opened his Workshop in 1982. [Music] he Peels and sticks the sheets onto a wall one by one and coats them with an extra layer of mossap um [Music] this year on the wall for a week until they're completely dry paper making was the heart of the economy in zungu for centuries people used saysaw paper to make books and dungle paintings a popular folk art used to decorate homes during the Vietnamese New Year but demand dwindled when paper factories opened in the area in the early 90s by 2020 75 of Vietnam's paper was Factory made foreign foreign [Music] sells the paper to museums and National Archives although he's kept the craft alive in his community still worries that it may end with him younger people haven't shown interest in preserving it [Music] is foreign is trying to change that she founded the Tsar project in 2013 a non-profit focused on preserving traditional paper making in Vietnam when you touch the handmade paper it's very different feeling when you touch it and when you use this that you know Zone matter is come from nature the organization buys and uses Tom's Cesar paper to produce postcards jewelry and artwork the proceeds help support Artisans who are working to keep says off paper alive in their community Yoon is also working to teach more young people and encourage them to use the paper we combine between the traditional value and also like con contemporary and modern designs for young people they are more interested in this crap in the last nine years the saw project has reached dozens of young Artisans across Vietnam it also restored a sense of pride In traditional paper makers foreign [Music] for this community of paper makers this craft has become a labor of love my name is [Music] [Music] the same goes for silk a dress made from it can cost up to 150 Vietnamese workers raise worms and spin their cocoons by hand today the country is the second biggest producer of raw silk in the world silk Villages dot Vietnam and they produce silk in a tedious 30-step process it all starts in fields like this one there aren't any worms out here this is just their food and they need this much of it these leaves contain vitamins amino acids and enough moisture that the worms never need to drink water farmers bring loads of harvested leaves to the silkworm houses [Music] their farmer he buys tens of thousands of worms from breeders each year and he raises them on Big Bamboo mats on the first floor of his home when it's feeding time he lays a net on the worms then he heaps three pounds of food on top the healthy worms crawl through the holes and get to munching them and they eat over 600 pounds of leaves a day meaning Tim can't rest because the worms eat every four hours they also need a sterile environment and a perfect temperature of around 22 degrees Celsius after nearly a month of eating and sleeping their bodies will plump up tin delivers the worms to another family in Hong Kong they hang them on racks stuffed with straw the worms spit the silk out of this organ called a spinnerette during this vulnerable time workers fight off bees that attack the silkworms the worms need sunny weather to produce colorful cocoons because if it's rainy and gray outside the cocoons could lose their color and look damaged within two days the cocoons are ready workers remove each one by hand once they've got a big enough pile they boil the cocoons in water that way they can kill the pupae insides and either eat them or use them in traditional medicine [Music] then they soak the cocoons for another five to seven hours before pulling the threads foreign families here pass down the delicate technique of hand pulling thread Ed [Music] has worked in silk for nearly 60 years she'll unravel about 70 grams of thread a day this machine reels the silk workers then hang the threads to dry language next the threads head to the Cooperative to Logan and finally the silk gets dunked a hundred times in all natural dyes [Music] thank you [Music]
2022-11-30 10:08
