Rustic Tru Son pottery village
Tru Son village, also known as Noi village, formerly belonged to Tru U, 20km southeast of Do Luong town, is a poor village whose main source of income is rice cultivation. Tru Son people call their pottery profession "squeezing clay to make pots", and perhaps they never thought that one day they would be able to go to Hanoi to "perform" that "rustic" farming work in front of the capital's people, students and even foreign tourists.
Mr. Tran Doan Hung, Head of the Department of Culture and Information of Do Luong district (Nghe An) said: "They are very happy because this is the first time they have been to Hanoi, "showing" how to make pots for the capital's people to see, and also visiting Uncle Ho's mausoleum, and being "on TV" too".
One can imagine that joy when looking at the small, dark farmers with heavy accents but bright smiling faces, enthusiastically instructing pottery making operations at the Vietnam Museum of Ethnology in mid-March.
Ceramic pots of all sizes were displayed before everyone's eyes by Ms. Huong, Ms. Lien, and Ms. Thai - the "artisans" of the village. The steps to create Tru Son ceramic products are quite simple but require smoothness and dexterity. Perhaps that is why only women in Tru Son undertake this job. Ms. Thai said that her daughter in the village started learning how to make ceramics at the age of ten, and by the age of 13 or 14 she was already a skilled craftsman.
Unlike Phu Lang or Bat Trang, Tru Son potters do not put the entire block of clay on the turntable, but use kneaded clay squeezed into the shape of a loach, which they call a roi, to join each part.
All pottery making tools consist of a wheel, a few small pieces of cloth, and thin bamboo strips (called khot) to shape and smooth the pottery. The materials used to fire the pottery are only leaves, sometimes straw.
The hardest part is collecting and softening the clay, which is usually done by men, because they have to go all the way to Hoi Yen village (Nghi Van, Nghi Loc), 10km from Tru Son, to get the clay to make pottery.
According to a story that the village elders often tell, the craft of making pots originated from Nghi Loc (perhaps the place where Tru Son people often went to get land). That is, in the past, there was a girl from that place who came to Tru Son to be a daughter-in-law. According to the law, the craft was only passed on to the daughter-in-law, not to the daughter. However, when the girl's mother came to Tru Son to visit her daughter, she saw that life was too hard and difficult, so she secretly passed on this craft. But now in Nghi Loc, the craft of making pottery has been lost. According to a survey by the staff of the Museum of Ethnology, currently in the Central region, only Tru Son still retains this traditional craft of making pots.
Mr. Doan Van Nam, Director of Nghe An Provincial Museum, said that according to the documents he has, the pottery profession has existed in Tru Son since the Tran Dynasty, around the 13th century. As for Mr. Nguyen Van Hua (55 years old, hamlet 10, Tru Son - one of the families with a long history of pottery making, his wife Pham Thi Lien also came to Hanoi to demonstrate pottery making techniques this time) said: when he grew up, his grandfather said that the pottery profession had existed for a long time.
In fact, no one knows exactly when the "clay-making-pot" profession began in Tru Son, but everyone is certain that it was created because of poverty and hardship. In a place with a harsh climate, surrounded by nothing but soil, farmers found ways to create products from the soil to serve their daily life, and then thought about selling them. Each product made was only sold for 1 to 5 thousand dong, but for generations, they have lived off the profession. Mrs. Le Thi Thuy (Thuong Giap, Tru Son) said: "Without this profession, my hometown would starve."
Until now, the life of the people here is still full of hardships. And the profession left by our ancestors has existed from generation to generation, without any special secret, nor any huge capital. However, it is a very typical product of the culture here, of the people of Nghe An, famous for their austerity and simple innocence.
Reaching a higher "level"?
Tru Son ceramic products are mainly pots but are quite diverse. There are about 30 types of pots, from large pots for boiling water, regular pots for cooking rice, small pots for stewing meat and fish, to pots for carrying water, fermenting bean sprouts, steaming sticky rice, cooking wine, and then all kinds of frying pans, pots for boiling medicine... In the past, there were also large pots for storing remains during exhumation, all kinds of spittoons, bottle covers for storing wine, and containers for storing cool water. Nowadays, artisans have also experimented with creating some new products such as orchid hanging baskets, quite unique piggy banks...
Tru Son pottery is like a country girl who has never been made up, does not know how to pose but has hidden charm. The unique characteristics of this pottery line are simple, rustic, unglazed and completely without any signs of decorative art. However, Tru Son pottery has clear advantages in thinness and lightness. Mr. Le Ngoc Han (Vietnam Fine Arts Association) said that with that ideal thinness, almost no water absorption and good clay composition, Tru Son pottery has all the qualities to reach a higher level, creating artistic ceramic products.
Finding a way for Tru Son pottery to develop to a higher level is only the idea of experts. As for the cultural and information officers of Do Luong district as well as Nghe An province, they only hope to preserve its rustic and original charm, while the products still sell steadily, so that people can rest assured and not give up the profession.
Mr. Hua also said that recently, the "market" of Tru Son pottery is not only from Thanh Hoa to Quang Binh, but also to Hai Phong, Nha Trang, Binh Dinh. And in 1996, there was a shipment exported to Denmark.
However, due to the rapid development of aluminum and plastic products, the number of Tru Son products is increasingly limited. Previously, about 80-90% of people followed the pottery profession, but now there are only about 20-30%. "When the children grow up, they only worry about leaving the village to make a living, now only the elderly who don't know what else to do make pots, first to earn some extra money, then to preserve the profession left by their ancestors". However, Mr. Hua as well as Ms. Lien, Ms. Thai, Ms. Huong - long-time potters in Tru Son, all believe that the pottery profession here will be preserved forever.
People's Newspaper
