Traditional profession for more than a century
Near the Lunar New Year of At Ty, the drum making profession in Bac Thai village is more bustling to prepare "goods" to sell on the occasion of the spring festival and the full moon of January for some families.
The family of Ms. Nguyen Thi Binh (42 years old) is one of the large drum producing households in Bac Thai village.
“I have been married here for 17 years. When I got married, my husband’s family had been making drums for a long time. I heard they had been doing it since their grandfathers and fathers,” said Ms. Binh.
According to Ms. Binh, each month her family produces about 20-30 drums of different sizes. This job brings in the main income for the family, with an average of about 200 million VND per year. In addition to making drums, the family also repairs damaged drums.
As one of the oldest people still making drums, Mr. Bui Van Luong (68 years old) shared that his father also made drums. When he was young, he helped his father make drums. When he grew up, Mr. Luong worked as a mechanic in Nghe An for a while. After that, he returned to his hometown to make drums for the past 40 years.
“My children are married and live far away, so no one follows my profession. Now there are only two old people living in the countryside. I am old and just do it for fun. Every year I make about 25-30 drums,” Mr. Luong confided.
According to Mr. Luong, to make a big drum, it takes him 10 days of work, and sells for about 10 million VND. After deducting expenses, he makes a profit of about 3 - 4 million VND. If he makes a small drum, it only takes 1 - 2 days of work, and the selling price of each small drum is from 500 thousand to 1 million VND, and a slightly larger drum costs 2 million VND.
Want to produce large quantities but have difficulty finding "output"
Mr. Bui Van Luong shared that, although he is quite old, if the demand is high, he can still produce and sell twice as many drums as he does now. Because the "output" is still difficult, he only produces when someone places an order, so he only works slowly.
Ms. Nguyen Thi Binh also confided that the concern of not only her family but also many other families in the village who make drums is finding an outlet and consuming their products.
“Our family is mainly looking for sources to import goods. The specialty of this profession is that consumption is strong mainly during the full moon of January and the full moon of July when families beat drums to worship the full moon. If there is a good output, my family will focus on expanding the scale and producing on a large scale,” Ms. Binh shared.
In addition to the difficulty in output, Mr. Luong and Ms. Binh also shared that the increasingly scarce source of jackfruit wood used to make drums is also a challenge for the drum making profession.
On January 3, Mr. Phan Huu Duan - Vice Chairman of the People's Committee of Thach Hoi commune - said that the drum making craft village in Bac Thai village has existed for more than 100 years. The "ancestor" of this craft is a man with the surname Bui from Thanh Hoa province who came to live and follow the drum making profession, which was then gradually expanded within the Bui family.
Currently, Bac Thai drum craft village has about 25 households, mainly brothers, fathers and sons, relatives in the Bui family who make drums. Among them, the big producing families are Bui Dang, Bui Cat, Bui Nghiem, Bui Can...
“Each year, the revenue from the Bac Thai drum making craft village is about 4-5 billion VND. This profession has brought a fairly high income to the people. Families who do this job have a higher standard of living than the average in the locality,” Mr. Duan shared.
The concern, according to Mr. Duan, is that although the Bac Thai Drum Village Cooperative has been established, there is no centralized production workshop. Members produce at home and mainly find outlets for their products.
“Hopefully, with the development of society, traditional festivals will be increasingly restored, and market demand will grow to facilitate the output of drum products from Bac Thai village. Thereby, helping the craft village develop, expand its scale, and bring a more prosperous and comfortable life to the people doing the craft,” Mr. Duan confided.
