Artisan Sam Thi Bich - the weaver of the Hoa Tien brocade dream

"Rekindle" the colors of brocade

Along with language and music, brocade is the "soul" of the Thai people. The Thai people consider brocade as an indispensable item in daily life. Weaving brocade has become an important criterion to evaluate the qualities of Thai girls when they grow up. Therefore, from a young age, Thai girls are taught by their mothers how to weave brocade. The same goes for artisan Sam Thi Bich (59 years old), in Hoa Tien village, Chau Tien commune. Mrs. Bich said: The Thai people still pass on the folk song "Vam mu pe lai, ngái mu pe poc", which means "turn your hands down to spin silk, turn your hands up to embroider patterns, flowers and leaves". The folk song means that Thai girls must be proficient in brocade weaving. Continuing this tradition, from a young age, I was taught by my grandmother, mother, sister, and aunt how to raise silkworms, weave fabric, dye fabric, and embroider...

Smart and skillful, Mrs. Sam Thi Bich quickly mastered the secrets of brocade weaving and created beautiful skirts, scarves, and bags for herself and her family. Every day, in addition to working in the fields and gardens, Mrs. Bich was passionate and diligent in sowing seeds, growing cotton, raising silkworms, spinning, dyeing indigo, weaving, and even cutting, sewing, and embroidering.

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To make a brocade product, the most time-consuming step is hanging the thread on the frame. Depending on the type of product and pattern, hang the thread appropriately. Whether the product is beautiful or outstanding depends on the dye color from natural materials. To get orange yellow, it must be extracted from xum pu seeds, green banana buds from muoc leaves, yellow from jackfruit core or roots of xet or pui trees, brown from coffee leaves, red from ant wings... Each artisan has his own secret of mixing and blending colors.

Artisan Sam Thi Bich

Because of her love and attachment to the traditional brocade weaving of her people, Mrs. Sam Thi Bich was very sad when for a long time the brocade weaving craft was lost right in the land of Muong Chieng Ngam. Brocade was faded due to many reasons, including the fact that this product could not compete with other industrial fabrics in both price and popularity. The elderly left the loom; the young were no longer interested in the craft... many patterns and formulas for making dyes from plants and grass gradually disappeared.

In the midst of the sadness of worrying about the decline of brocade weaving, joy unexpectedly came to Mrs. Sam Thi Bich. In 1992, in Quy Chau district (old), Nghe An province launched a project to support the restoration of brocade weaving. At that time, Mrs. Lang Thi Hong - a district agricultural officer (later Vice Chairman of the District People's Committee) went to Hoa Tien village, met with people passionate about the craft, including Mrs. Bich, and discussed the establishment of a brocade weaving group to restore the traditional craft. The brocade weaving group was born with the participation of 10 women. To make brocade vibrant again, the brocade weaving group sought out Mrs. Sam Thi Vien - an elderly artisan, the most skilled in the region, to learn more, to find out the patterns, sophisticated lines, and dye secrets that made the beauty of Hoa Tien brocade in the past.

Hoa Tien brocade weaving group quickly produced quality products. At this time, with the support of departments, branches and localities, these brocade products were brought to Laos for sale; brought to fairs and handicraft product competitions at home and abroad. From here, domestic and foreign orders were actively sought. The income from brocade made during the off-season was approximately 1 million VND/month for each woman in the group. As a pillar in the group, Ms. Sam Thi Bich, in addition to weaving brocade products, also actively participated in promotional activities, offering products, and finding places to consume products. Ms. Bich said: "By 1997, Hoa Tien brocade was present in many famous tourist destinations in Vietnam such as Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City; and even abroad such as China, France, Canada and the NGO Craft Link was a regular customer".

The sale of brocade has made the weaving profession in Chau Tien commune "revive" and have a new development step. In 2009, Hoa Tien Brocade Weaving Village was recognized by the People's Committee of Nghe An province as a small-scale handicraft village. From only 10 people participating in the Hoa Tien Brocade Weaving Group, by 2010, the group had developed into the Hoa Tien Brocade Cooperative with 60 women participating (at this time there were 54 people), with Ms. Sam Thi Bich as the Director of the cooperative. In 2019, the Hoa Tien Brocade Village Cooperative had 3 products including scarves, skirts, tablecloths that met 4-star OCOP standards... During its operation, the cooperative has achieved many outstanding achievements, receiving many Certificates of Merit and Merit from all levels.

Passing the torch on to the future

As the leader of the cooperative, Ms. Sam Thi Bich has constantly made efforts to find markets, contact agents and retail stores in provinces and cities to supply products; participate in training courses, actively teach the profession to women in the district (old); invite women in the village and commune to restore the weaving frame and join the cooperative; establish a loan group to expand the production scale of Hoa Tien weaving group in a more professional direction... Ms. Bich also requires the women to practice their skills, be meticulous and creative in producing brocade products; try to design products that are both beautiful and suitable for customers' tastes. Thanks to that, Hoa Tien Brocade Cooperative has hundreds of designs, patterns, and many different types of products from brocade panels, clothes, bed sheets, tablecloths to unique briefcases, wallets, ties, scarves, and headgear.

Ms. Sam Thi Bich herself always sets a shining example in studying, working and creating. Whenever she has free time, Ms. Bich travels to villages and hamlets of Quy Chau district (old) and other localities to meet artisans and elderly people with experience in brocade products to learn more about unique weaving techniques, learn about patterns and designs that customers love. She actively produces beautiful brocade products and brings them to competitions, exhibitions and wins many awards at the Vietnam Handicraft Product Competitions organized by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (old) in 2006, 2007, 2009, 2010, 2011... thereby contributing to introducing and promoting Hoa Tien brocade products. In addition, her brocade products also received the Certificate of Outstanding Rural Industrial Products at the provincial level, Northern region in 2016; Won first prize for outstanding rural products at provincial level and national rural products in 2017 (awarded by the Ministry of Industry and Trade).

During her operation, production and business, Ms. Sam Thi Bich has received many Certificates of Merit from the commune, district, province, Vietnam Craft Village Association, Vietnam Farm and Agricultural Enterprise Association, Vietnam Cooperative Alliance and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (formerly)... for her outstanding achievements in the patriotic emulation movement and other fields. In 2016, Ms. Bich also received a Certificate of Merit from the title of skilled worker; in 2018, she was certified as an artisan.

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I was very happy to receive the Certificates of Merit, but the happiest thing is that I have made positive contributions to preserving and developing the traditional cultural identity of the Thai people, at the same time, contributing to creating jobs, increasing income for women in Chau Tien commune, ensuring social security in the locality. At this time, the average income of each cooperative member is 4.5-5 million VND/month.

Artisan Sam Thi Bich

The revival of brocade in Chau Tien has encouraged and motivated many other localities in the province to promote the restoration and development of brocade craft villages. At this time, in Nghe An, there are quite a few recognized brocade craft villages. And recently, on June 3, 2025, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism officially decided to include the brocade weaving profession of the Thai people in Nghe An province in the List of National Intangible Cultural Heritage, belonging to the category of traditional handicrafts. Ms. Sam Thi Bich was very happy when her ethnic traditional craft became a National Intangible Cultural Heritage: Brocade weaving becoming a heritage has created more favorable conditions to preserve and promote the craft associated with tourism development, local socio-economics in the new period.

According to Ms. Bich: In the past few years, Hoa Tien brocade in particular and Nghe An brocade in general have been quite "suffocating" due to the saturation of supply and demand, the products are selling quite slowly; there is competition from "fake brocade" fabrics. In addition, there is also the worry that young people will not follow the profession because the attraction from domestic and foreign industrial zones is greater than the benefits from the loom. The decision of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism has helped to raise the level of brocade. Brocade is no longer a purely commodity product but also a tourism product and through tourism, brocade will continue to reach friends near and far.

It is known that for a long time, Ms. Sam Thi Bich has been quietly making efforts to arouse the love of brocade among young people and turn brocade and the brocade weaving process into a tourism product.

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In the activities of local Thai cultural clubs, Artisan Sam Thi Bich has been very active in teaching traditional cultural values ​​to the younger generation, especially the pride of local brocade. Along with that, Artisan Sam Thi Bich and her daughter have set up a homestay right in the village and are currently expanding the scale. Right at the homestay, Artisan Sam Thi Bich has actively demonstrated the brocade weaving craft, introduced and promoted the cooperative's products to tourists. This is a good way to preserve and promote the value of traditional brocade craft.

Mr. Tran Viet Duc - Vice Chairman of Chau Tien Commune People's Committee