Half a life lived with passion
One day at the end of 2024, artisan Vu Manh Huy was busy working on a National Flower sculpture plate ordered by a customer to display on the occasion of the Lunar New Year 2025. On sunny days as well as rainy days, from 4am, Huy came to the pottery workshop, working tirelessly and passionately until late at night, sometimes forgetting to eat and sleep.
According to him, this passion has followed him for half his life, since he was a child. Huy was born into a family with a tradition of making ceramics, and he is the fourth generation to follow the profession. Before 1985, the whole Duong Dong village made ceramics, with every family's kiln burning all year round. Later, the craft gradually faded away, the elderly were not strong enough to continue the profession, and the young almost gave up, struggling with other jobs to make a living. As for Huy, his passion was so great that he was determined to pursue it, even though at that time the pottery profession was very hard, with an unstable income.
After graduating from high school in 1991, Huy began his journey of learning a trade, visiting all the famous pottery villages in the North to learn and explore so that he could return to his hometown to start a business. Each craft village had its own materials and style, helping Huy accumulate experience, multi-dimensional perspectives, and nurture a plan to one day revive his hometown pottery village.
In 2005, Mr. Huy left Bat Trang pottery village to return to his hometown and started a small pottery workshop at his own house in village 8, Minh Tan commune. In the early days, Mr. Huy encountered many difficulties in terms of workshop, raw materials, human resources as well as product output. However, with many years of experience, Mr. Huy took advantage of the vacant land around his house to build a workshop, searched for raw clay from Duong Dong village, connected artisans and potters in the city to support each other in their work... Gradually, Mr. Huy's pottery workshop operated stably, the number of works increased and diversified, Duong Dong pottery gradually "revived" by the skillful hands of skilled craftsmen and the heart of a son who loved and was eager to preserve the traditional craft of his ancestors.
Applying technology to improve product quality
Not only maintaining the traditional craft, artisan Vu Manh Huy constantly researches and improves the quality of Duong Dong ceramic products to increase competitiveness with other products on the market. On the other hand, he seeks to minimize the impact of ceramic production on the surrounding environment by using gas kilns instead of lime kilns as before. Not only does it reduce emissions to the environment, gas kilns also help craftsmen easily adjust the temperature.
Mr. Huy also invested in a series of modern machines and equipment such as soil mixers, soil presses, color spraying air compressors... Thanks to that, the products are of better quality, with fewer errors, the production process is also more professional and less laborious, Mr. Huy has more time for creativity, investing in each pattern and detail on the products to create the most complete works.
Up to now, each year, Mr. Huy's pottery workshop produces thousands of large and small products, some worth up to 50 million VND. Customers from all three regions of the country love and order his ceramic works. Mr. Huy successfully brought the peach-shaped leaf-shaped ceramic pot product to be certified as a 3-star OCOP product, and was recognized by the Chairman of the Hai Phong City People's Committee as a typical rural industrial product at the city level in 2023.
During the 2025 Lunar New Year, Mr. Huy rushed to produce 100 peach-shaped ceramic pots and many unique decorative and relief works to deliver to customers for the New Year. Mr. Huy's future goal is to open a showroom, promote products as well as expand the business market on digital platforms to suit current consumer trends.
Persistently pursuing the traditional profession, this artisan has found a job, a good income, and created jobs for 6 local workers. However, deep down, Huy still wants to pass on the profession to the next generations, so that the name of Duong Dong pottery will last forever. Therefore, in addition to production and business, Huy organizes pottery making experience activities at his own pottery workshop, welcoming thousands of domestic and foreign visitors every year to visit and experience.
“Looking at the children engrossed in molding and drawing, I see myself more than 40 years ago. I just hope that among these children there will be those who truly love pottery, I will teach them with all my heart,” Huy shared.
(Posted on the special edition of Labor Weekend Spring At Ty)
