Changes in the century-old shipbuilding village of Trung Kien
(Baonghean.vn) - In early spring, coming to Trung Kien village, a village with a tradition of building wooden ships with a history of hundreds of years, one can clearly feel the transformation in the face of changing times. There are still shipbuilders in the village, struggling to preserve the traditional profession while finding new ways to make a living.
Change of livelihood
Located next to the main road running between the two hamlets of Rong and Dinh in Nghi Thiet commune (Nghi Loc), Mr. Phan Van Anh's carpentry workshop is only about 100 square meters wide. During the days leading up to Lunar New Year, the sound of chainsaws cutting wood almost never stops, and the number of people coming in and out of the workshop is also larger than usual.
“Boss” Phan Van Anh smiled brightly, stopped working, and in front of a mess of unfinished household items, he said: Near Tet, orders increased more than usual, about 4 orders/month. However, carpentry business today also has a lot of pressure and competition. Compared to shipbuilding in the past, producing household wooden products requires much more techniques, skills, and talent.
Sharing about the “new profession” of shipbuilders in Trung Kien Craft Village, Mr. Phan Van Anh said that the craftsmen have to market themselves, contact acquaintances to invite orders. Households rarely produce for free sale because they are afraid that the products will not sell well and there will be no buyers. Because most households in this civil carpentry profession take advantage of the narrow space of their houses to produce, or have to rent land in other hamlets or communes to set up workshops.
During the months leading up to Lunar New Year, Mr. Phan Van Anh mostly works at the factory because orders increase 2-3 times compared to normal days. During the remaining months of the year, he only receives an average of 1-2 orders per month with a value of several tens of millions of VND per order. In his spare time, he contacts customers to make new wooden furniture at home, mainly in Vinh city.
“Usually, I only accept orders worth over 100 million VND for work at home, because I often have to travel far away, transport accompanying machinery, and also have to worry about food and accommodation costs for myself and the hired workers,” said Mr. Phan Van Anh.
Mrs. Pham Thi Dinh - Head of Dinh Hamlet, who also visited Phan Van Anh's workshop, added that Phan Van Anh's family has been in the shipbuilding business for many generations, and is one of hundreds of households participating in the Trung Kien Shipbuilding Cooperative. Now, like many other shipbuilders, when there are no more orders for wooden ships, the craftsmen have had to change their livelihood.
In addition to Mr. Phan Van Anh's household, there are a number of other households with quite large production scales, with revenues of more than 500 million - 1 billion VND/year... Previously, more than 300 households in the hamlet were engaged in shipbuilding. Now, the whole hamlet has only 14 households that maintain the family trade by switching to producing household wooden products such as cabinets, beds, tables, chairs, door frames, stairs... Trung Kien craft village used to have more than 30 shipbuilding workshops operating day and night, but now there are only a few workshops still operating.
Hard work to keep the profession
Arriving at Trung Kien village in the early days of the new year, the "guide" who has worked at the shipyard for nearly 40 years, Mr. Vo Van Chien, while walking along the long, narrow alley, confided that the familiar sounds in Trung Kien have always been the sound of the ocean waves and the sound of sawing wood.
“The sound has been deeply ingrained in the subconscious and memories of many generations of Trung Kien people. Today, although the sound of the profession is sparse, it will never disappear” – Mr. Vo Van Chien confided. Mr. Pham Van Yet in Dinh hamlet, who has nearly 50 years of experience in the shipbuilding profession, shared: “Back then, the shipyards were always bustling, working 3 shifts a day continuously with more than 30 workshops. Each workshop built at least 2 new ships per month, there were large workshops that built 7-8 ships at peak times, each year the craft village built hundreds of large and small ships”.
Around a pot of green tea in the late afternoon of early spring, fondly recalling the glorious memories of the past, the elders attached to Trung Kien Shipbuilding Village said that the villagers have been familiar with the craft of building wooden ships for five or seven hundred years, passed down through generations from father to son since the days of building ships for kings. Although with the changing times, producers and businesses must also change according to market trends, but the traditional craft in Trung Kien still has people continuing, attached, and loving it.
One of the few people who still maintain the shipyard in Trung Kien is Mr. Tran Dang Lu in Dinh hamlet. Mr. Lu's house and shipyard are located not far from the Dinh hamlet cultural house. After some winding alleys, Mr. Lu's shipyard is located close to the river bank. The scene is quite desolate, with grass growing wildly in many places because no one has cleared it for a long time. Many rusted, termite-eaten, and sun-corroded furniture and tools lie scattered all over the workshop.
“In the past, the shipyard never ran out of work. This workshop was passed down from my father. I have been familiar with shipbuilding and carpentry since I was a child. Carpentry has nurtured many generations of families. Now, market trends have changed, forcing the craftsmen to change as well, but I still want to preserve the profession that has existed in the village for hundreds of years,” Lu confided. Maintaining the traditional profession, Lu’s shipyard still builds 2-4 new wooden-hulled ships each year, but mainly small-capacity ships. The rest of the workshop mainly repairs old ships.
In 2014, Trung Kien Craft Village was honored by the Central Executive Committee of the Vietnam Craft Village Association as "Typical Craft Village of Vietnam"; Trung Kien Shipbuilding Cooperative was awarded the title "Typical Craft Village Economic Unit of Vietnam".
Sharing the same sentiment as Mr. Lu, many people in Nghi Thiet, when mentioning the shipbuilding profession, always express their pride in the glorious time of the shipbuilding craft village for the king.
“In the future, if one day the shipbuilding profession of Trung Kien village can no longer be maintained, it can be converted into a tourist village. Nghi Thiet has beautiful scenery of mountains leaning on rivers and seas, the people have unique traditions and is a place with long-standing and unique cultural sediments, very suitable for tourism. And I hope that the village's shipbuilding workshops will also be preserved” – a resident of Trung Kien village expressed.
