A unique craft village
Thuy Ung village (Thuong Tin commune) is about 20km south of Hanoi city center, famous as the only horn-making village in the country. The people of Thuy Ung are proud that 36 typical streets of old Hanoi have Hang Luoc street created with the hands of their ancestors.
According to the relics and royal decrees still preserved in the village communal house, the profession of making horns was taught to the people of Thuy Ung by a person named Tran from around the mid-16th century, under the reign of King Le Trung Tong. Since then, the villagers have gradually shifted from farming to making hammocks.
Mr. Nguyen Van Hiep, Deputy Head of Thuy Ung Village, said that there are currently about 1,000 households in the village participating in the production of products from buffalo and cow horns. Every day, the village regularly imports and processes raw materials worth about 600 million VND.
For more than 400 years, Thuy Ung village has only made herbs. But since 1990, the international market has expanded, machinery has been applied, and the village's artisans have created hundreds of new items, increasing the production value to dozens of times.
international customers come to the place to place orders and follow orders, so they are not afraid of being unsold. Goods are specially made for each market, exported to China are mainly hammocks, exported to Japan are health care products such as windbreak, feel-providing, acupressure. The European market prefers disc trays, bracelets, earrings..., Mr. Hiep shared.
Mr. Hiep added that in the village, there are many horn factories that employ over 10 workers, applying many machines, bringing the workshop owners billions of dong in annual income. Workers, depending on their skills, also earn from 250,000-500,000 VND/day.
"The village's life is very high now, the owner or worker almost only works 8 hours a day, in the afternoon the whole village goes for exercise, playing football...", the village official happily laughed.
Having a chance to rest thanks to the profession passed down from their ancestors
Mr. Nguyen Van Su (65 years old) is the most famous artisan in Thuy Ung village, in 2023 he was honored in the top 100 excellent artists nationwide. After more than 50 years in the profession, Mr. Su is the owner of a horn processing workshop with more than 10 regular workers and can expand to 30 seasonal workers when there is a large order.
Mr. Su said that previous generations of artisans in Thuy Ung village all started learning the craft when they were under 10 years old. The horn making worker started to learn the trade by carrying goods, moving workshops or just stopping for his father and grandfather to work.
When they are used to the horns, the saws, and the hoes, children in Thuy Ung village start touching the simplest steps such as cutting the long horn into pieces with the hands, making embryos for grapefruit bag-shaped cloves.
"Learning each step from easy to difficult is the most difficult, especially sawdust because if you get lost, you will lose your job. To become a craftsman quickly, it takes 10 years, and to be good at the job, I still have to study until I am old, said the artisan of the History.
Mr. Su said that depending on the product, the rough horn must go through 15-20 stages to complete. Each stage requires technique and elaboration.
It is easy to mention the steps from sawing the horn into an emulsion, steaming or boiling oil to make the horn soft and flat. Then there are the cutting, plowing, sculpting, grinding stages... The row of thorns turning the color into the most beautiful, as bright as a pearl, lasting over the years.
Artisan Su also shared that thanks to his job as a horn-making worker, his family earns a few hundred million VND each year, has a high house and a large workshop. His two sons are also in the family business.
"The profession passed down by our ancestors has given us a stable job and a good income. There are people who have worked in other jobs but have returned to making corn. If it were not for this profession, my family would not have the opportunity to rest like now, Mr. Su said proudly.
Ms. Vu Thi Muoi (55 years old), Mr. Su's wife, shared that during peak years her family earned up to 3 billion VND, and in years with few customers, they could also export over 1 billion VND. The workshop's products are quite diverse, from shirts that only cost a few tens of thousands of VND to cosmetic products such as the Khue Van Cac model that cost nearly ten million VND. The most expensive are unique pair of horns for decoration, worth tens of millions of VND.
Not only producing, Mr. Su's family is preparing a more neat factory to welcome tourists. I want to tell stories about the hornbrush, about culture, about traditional crafts to international friends, said Mr. Su.
Next to Mr. Su's workshop, Mr. Nguyen Hung Cuong's workshop (43 years old) is also busy completing a new order. Each year, Mr. Cuong's family processes an amount of raw materials worth about 700 million VND, producing tens of thousands of hammocks.
Mr. Cuong does not hire workers, because in Thuy Ung village, almost everyone has a job. To meet large orders, he rented many workshops in other communes to process in stages.
According to Mr. Cuong, for artisans in Thuy Ung village, just holding a piece of embryos in hand is enough to cut them out of buffalo or cow horns, old or young animals, male or female. With each piece of embryo, the craftsman will know how to make it the most beautiful and valuable.
The job helps every family member have a job all year round. When the work is specialized for each workshop, those in charge of orders like me only need to do a good job of distributing and checking the quality of goods, said Mr. Cuong.
