Quy Chau incense village on Tet holiday

(Baonghean.vn) -In the Vietnamese mind, incense sticks are like a bridge connecting the visible and invisible worlds, between real life and the spiritual world.Every time Tet comes, in addition to offerings on the family altar to show respect and the virtue of remembering one's roots, lighting incense to pray for health and prosperity is indispensable.

Still here are the lyrics:“A stick of incense to my ancestors /Connecting the red bloodline silently and passionately.

Incense is a traditional product of Quy Chau people. On the days before Tet, Tan Lac town, Quy Chau district becomes more crowded because many people come here to buy incense to bring back to the lowlands to sell.The incense making profession in this area originated from people from the lowlands who came to make a living. From working in forest gardens, they discovered that Phu Quy was a region with abundant raw materials for the incense making profession. Gradually, Quy Chau brand incense became famous.

During the days before Tet, the incense making village in Quy Chau is always bustling.

To have fragrant incense buds, incense makers must choose the ingredients very carefully. Right from the beginning of summer, they go all over the region to order vetiver roots (the main ingredient), which is a herbaceous plant with long leaves and a thick root system that often grows in large clumps along streams or on hillsides, under cool, moist foliage. Ingredients for making incense also include cardamom, star anise, cinnamon, agarwood, and sugarcane bagasse, which are mainly available in the region, except for cardamom and star anise which must be imported from Lang Son. The ingredients are dried, ground into a fine powder, and mixed together according to a family secret.

The incense is tightly rolled with rice paper. This is a very thin, soft, tough, and burning paper, bought from Bac Ninh. One edge of the rice paper is coated with dye, when rolled into an incense stick, it has a very beautiful pattern.The work is spread out throughout the year and is mainly concentrated in the months before Tet. A family's investment capital is about 10 to 20 million VND for everything from raw materials to other necessary things.Each crop after deducting expenses, also earns from 30 to 40 million VND.

Currently, Tan Lac town has about 25 large-scale incense production facilities. However, to maintain and develop the traditional profession for incense makers here still have many concerns.With the development of the incense making industry, the demand for raw materials is increasing, and natural cinnamon and agarwood forests are gradually becoming scarce. Mr. Nguyen Hong Linh - head of block 1, Tan Lac town, Quy Chau district said: "Currently, the incense production industry is still individual, many incense production facilities in other regions still use the brand name Quy Chau incense but the quality is not guaranteed, making the villagers very worried".

I think, Quy Chau district government needs to re-plan production areas, soon register trademarks to create momentum for the development of traditional professions.

Nguyen Le