Overview:

• In the development of traditional handicraft villages and handicraft industries in Vietnam, the field of bamboo and rattan production occupies an important position. Among the bamboo and rattan craft villages of Hanoi today, the most typical is the bamboo and rattan craft village of Phu Vinh, Phu Nghia commune, Chuong My district. The village is located along the national highway 6A axis connecting Hanoi with the northern mountainous provinces, 5km from Chuong My district town, 27km from the center of Hanoi in the southwest direction.
• Phu Vinh village is considered the “land of clouds" famous for bamboo and rattan knitting with a long history of craft development. Who is the real ancestor of bamboo and rattan craft in Phu Vinh is unknown. The elderly recount that, about 400 years ago, Phu Hoa Trang (now Phu Vinh) had a place called Co Dau beach because there were many storks, later called Go Dau. Stork feathers often fall off a mound, some people like to pick them up and make them into hats and hats. At first, they found it beautiful, durable, and immediately made into gifts for relatives and friends, gradually becoming loved and many people came to buy. Over time, stork feathers are limited, people look for more sedges and reeds that grow in the fields and go to the forest to find flexible materials such as bamboo, rattan, and bamboo … to produce household items such as baskets and baskets. Over time, many new materials have been added, product designs have been improved, and the bamboo and rattan weaving techniques of the villagers have been enhanced to make the products more sophisticated and of economic value. than. The craft of rattan and bamboo has since spread to other villages in the region and then to more than 20 provinces and cities across the country.

Bamboo and rattan products:

• Each bamboo and rattan product is a work of art, requiring sophisticated and elaborate techniques and fine arts of talented and skillful hands. In order to have a satisfactory work, the Phu Vinh villager must first understand the materials he intends to make. For example, bamboo trees, cork, vacu, bamboo… and many other types of bamboo are plants belonging to the rice family. Bamboo is a straight-growing tree, with high hardness, dry and brittle, especially bamboo contains sugar, so it is easy to be eaten by weevils, so when used in knitting, it must be treated against weevils.
• In order to produce a product, it must go through many steps, from selecting and purchasing, processing raw materials, to manufacturing products. Purchased raw materials are re-dried. Then put it in a chemical bath for about 10 days to fight termites. Then take out the bamboo to grind, scrape the bark, use armor paper to polish and dry the bamboo.
• The next stage is to put the bamboo in the oven, use straw, straw or bamboo leaves to smelt the color, the product is brown or dark brown, at the request of the customer. After smelting to get the color, take the bamboo out of the oven to cool and then straighten it. Entering the packing stage, the craftsmen choose materials to cut out the items to match the products being born. The color of the product has many types, which can be from the original color of rattan or supported through the preparation of PU paint.
• Rattan is a forest product used as raw material for the production of handicrafts, household appliances (furniture) such as tables, chairs or baskets… Rattan core contains more water than the outer shell, when rattan dries Natural ivory white, flexible and tough. The durability of rattan if not wet can be 100 years or more. The rattan tree grows very slowly, each year it only grows 1 meter longer, when it reaches 5 meters long, it must be harvested. Young or old rattan trees are of poor quality.

History:

• According to the historical line, the traditional bamboo and rattan craft has existed and developed for more than 400 years. Phu Vinh village was formed in 1700, with the original name is Phu Hoa Trang village (God is endowed with silk hands), because the people here have skillful, skillful hands, good at weaving rattan and bamboo. .
• And so, according to the profession “passed down from father to son", the children of Phu Vinh village grew up attached to the rattan tree, bamboo tree, holding the palm of the hand the attributes of each bamboo tree, each rattan fiber. Gradually, bamboo and rattan has developed into a traditional craft of Phu Vinh village. Skilled workers are creating more and more beautiful, sophisticated, and diverse bamboo and rattan products.

Production status, production model:

Phu Vinh bamboo and rattan craft village not only meets the needs of domestic products but also reaches the fastidious markets in the world. Exports to China, Japan and some European countries account for 60% of the total product, and 40% of the domestic product.

Processing technique:

Consists of 2 stages: drying and splitting rattan. The rattan is split into thin spokes, the worker will depend on each product to choose a separate way to split the spokes. The spokes are polished to be more glossy and smooth; then they are dried, soaked in water, dried again so that rattan fibers have high plasticity.

In order to produce a product, it must go through many steps, from selecting and purchasing, processing raw materials, to manufacturing products. Purchased raw materials are re-dried. Then put it in a chemical bath for about 10 days to fight termites. Then take out the bamboo to grind, scrape the bark, use armor paper to polish and dry the bamboo.

The next stage is to put the bamboo in the oven, use straw, straw or bamboo leaves to smelt the color, the product is brown or dark brown, at the request of the customer. After smelting to get the color, take the bamboo out of the oven to cool and then straighten it. Entering the packing stage, the craftsmen choose materials to cut out the items to match the products being born. The color of the product has many types, which can be from the original color of rattan or supported through the preparation of PU paint.

Sampling is the first stage of rattan processing. The rattan tree, whether long or short, only cuts every 3m, straighten the rattan and then pull the knot. Chopping rattan is an elaborate job, requiring quite high skills. Rattan trees often have uneven nodes, so when splitting, it is necessary to pay attention to carefully control so that the large and small parts are equal. The main requirement of rattan splitting is that the fibers of each type must be very even. Large yarn for knitting normal products. Microfiber is used to make precious items, or to create sophisticated flowers… Our technique of splitting bamboo and rattan fibers is a precious creation. Depending on the big and small bamboo and rattan trees, the decision to split is even or odd. To make one size rattan, if you split the small rattan into quarters or six, then split the larger one into seven or nine strands.

After splitting, the spokes are polished to have smooth, flat rattan fibers, then dried in the sun to dry, so that the water in the rattan fibers escapes. In order for the product to have a variety of colors, after drying, the rattan fibers will be dipped into pots of chopped shiitake leaves that have been boiled. This is a completely natural, chemical-free way of coloring that makes Phu Vinh's bamboo and rattan products not harmful to users' health and has a high color fastness of 30-40 years.

Traditional product:

In the past, Phu Vinh rattan and bamboo products were mainly produced to serve daily life such as: baskets, gradually, sieves, bags, boxes… Nowadays, the village has many designs and types that require technical skills. such as portraits, landscapes, parallel sentences, birds and animals or ceramic products wrapped in rattan, interior decorations such as lampshades, curtains…

Modern products:

Rattan and bamboo are not only flexible and easy to shape, but also very durable, according to artisan Hoang Van Hanh, bamboo and rattan products can be kept longer than human life if they know how to keep the product's lifespan. He also said that: Rattan and bamboo are not only applied materials in decoration, furniture, fashion, life items, … but also can be used in the design of residential buildings.

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