Van Ha wood carving village

Visiting Hanoi, a land of thousand year literature, please make a visit to Van Ha wood carving village where preciseness and passion of villagers become an endless source of inspiration for their art work.

Belonging to Dong Anh district, 20 km north from Hanoi center, Van Ha commune has 6 hamlets, in which Thiet Ung has the oldest history of wood carving. According to the village’s elders, wood carving has been existed for more than 1,000 years and patriarch Lo Ban was their first teacher.

Since long time, Thiet Ung village has been the main supply source of wood carving products to Hanoi. Various kinds of products as bed, cupboard, desk, long chair, incense burner, imperial court,… were displayed for sale at Hang Trong, Hang Khay and Hang Quat streets. Since 1908-1909, Mr. Henri Oger, a French ethnologist, praised: “Wood carving has been well developed. All European visitors to Hanoi realized the animated trade of wood carving products on streets,… Wood carving artisans have made marvelous designs from simple tools that bright nice surprise for European visitors ”

For the time being, wood carving in Thiet Ung village has been expanded to all Van Ha commune and to some neighbored communes. Visiting Van Ha today, you will see the animated production, country lane full of wood material, various shops and especially passionate workers who are working on precious materials such as ebony, rose wood, sindora wood,… to create plentiful kinds of interior decoration as cupboard, bed, table, chair, statue,…

For generations, creating good quality products is professional conscience of Van Ha villagers. They have to select durable wood, then cut the rough into intended form. Normal workers need to draw the designs on paper, then print designs in wood for carving. The experience artisans can outline the design in their mind, they are able to blow their spirit into wooden block to create sophisticated vignettes by simple chisels.

There are up to 1,200 households operating in wood carving in Van Ha Commune, in which 20 enterprises have introduced Van Ha products to every corners of the country and gain the exportation markets in Taiwan and South East Asia,… with annual turnover of 20 billion dong

Pursuing the tradition, artisans of current generation as Mr. Dong Van Sang, Mr. Nguyen Van Kim, Mr. Dao Van Boi have been training younger generations with all their heart to make a famous craft village in capital city forever existing.