In the development of traditional handicraft villages and Vietnamese handicrafts, the bamboo and rattan production sector occupies an important position. In the current bamboo and rattan crafting villages of Hanoi, the most typical one is the Phu Vinh bamboo and rattan craft village, Phu Nghia commune, Chuong My district. The village is located along National Highway 6A connecting Hanoi with northern mountainous provinces, 5km from Chuong My district capital, 27km from the center of Hanoi in the southwest direction.
Phu Vinh village is considered as “the land of Clouds” which is famous for bamboo and rattan weaving with a long history of craft development. Who is the real ancestor of the bamboo and rattan profession in Phu Vinh. The elders recounted that, about 400 years ago, Phu Hoa Trang (now Phu Vinh) had a place called Co Dau beach because there were many storks here, later called Go Dau. Stork feathers often fall off in a white area. Some people find that they like to pick them up to make a hat and a very pretty hat. Initially, they used the beautiful, durable look as a gift to relatives and friends, and gradually became loved and many people came to buy it. Gradually, the stork’s feathers are limited, people find more grass, available in the field and go to the forest to find flexible materials such as bamboo, rattan, giang … to produce household items such as baskets, bamboo baskets. , racks, lanes … Over time, many new materials are added, product designs have been improved, The villagers’ technique of weaving bamboo and rattan has been improved so that the products are more sophisticated and have more economic value. Since then, bamboo and rattan weaving has spread to other villages in the region and then to more than 20 provinces and cities nationwide.
Each bamboo and rattan product is a work of art, requiring sophisticated techniques and art from talented and skillful hands. To have a satisfactory work, first of all, the village worker in Phu Vinh must understand the material that he is going to make. For example, bamboo, neohouzeaua, vua, bamboo … and many other types of bamboo are rice plants. Bamboo is a tree that grows straight, has high hardness, is dry and brittle, especially bamboo contains sugar, so it is easily eaten by beetles, so when using it in knitting, it must be treated against one.
To manufacture a product, it must go through many steps, from choosing to buy, processing raw materials, to processing the product. Raw materials purchased are re-dried. Then put in the chemical soaking tank for about 10 days to prevent termites. Then take out the bamboo to grind the plate, scrape the shell, use the armor paper to polish and dry the bamboo.
The next step is to put the bamboo in the oven, using straw, straw or bamboo leaves to pick up the colors, the product has a dark brown or dark brown color, due to the customer’s request. After the color is smoked, take the bamboo out of the oven to cool and roll it straight up. Entering the packing process, the craftsmen choose the raw materials to cut out the items to suit the launched products. The color of the product has many types, which can be from the original color of smoked rattan or supported by the preparation of PU paint.
Rattan is a forest product that is used as raw materials for the production of handicrafts, household appliances (furniture) such as tables, chairs or baskets … Rattan contains more water than the outer shell, when rattan naturally dries. has a supple and supple ivory white color. The durability of rattan if not damp can be 100 years or more. Rattan grows very slowly, each year it only grows 1 meter long, when it is 5 meters long, it must be harvested. Poor quality young or old rattan.