Reflections on embroidery

(Baonghean) - Tourism products are one of the limitations of Nghe An's tourism industry in general and Nam Dan's tourism in particular. However, in recent years, tourists visiting the Kim Lien historical site have been very fond of embroidered paintings depicting President Ho Chi Minh's hometown, produced by Thanh Thuy Cooperative (Nam Thanh). The person who initiated and brought the embroidery craft to Nam Dan is Ms. Ho Thi Hong Thuy - the head of the cooperative.

She's no longer a civil servant, nor does she have to toil at her embroidery frame like in the old days, but arranging a meeting with the head of the Thanh Thuy Cooperative isn't easy because every day, Ms. Thuy has to travel back and forth between the communes of Nam Thuong, Nam Thanh, and Nam Thai to inspect and purchase products. Because of her passion, when I visited her home, the thing her mother kept repeating about her daughter was: "She still hasn't gotten married. I kept urging her until she was almost 34, and only had her first child at 35. In the countryside, at that age, children should already be in the 4th or 5th grade."

Ms. Thuy is packing goods to ship to Ho Chi Minh City for sale.

Ms. Ho Thi Dieu Thuy also describes herself in this way. During her school years, she was the best student in her family. However, due to difficult family circumstances and her father's serious illness, even after graduating from high school, she didn't register for university but chose to stay home and help with farming. A stroke of luck came her way when she happened to watch television and saw a program about the embroidery training and production facility of veteran Dao Ngoc Phuc in Hoa Binh City. Without hesitation, Ms. Thuy wrote to Hoa Binh, hoping to learn the craft and bring it back to her neighbors. After three months of training by Mr. Dao Ngoc Phuc himself, Ms. Thuy had a solid skill set. Later, she was introduced to Hoa Lu (Ninh Binh) to learn export-quality lace embroidery and to Thuong Tin (Ha Tay) to learn picture embroidery.

In the early days of her career, she received orders from Thuong Tin to embroider by hand at home. Whenever she had free time, she would teach her family members and a few neighbors. However, after a short time, she realized that the work of sending and receiving goods was too tiring, and the money wasn't worth it. Why not set up her own business and sell the products herself? This idea was also widely supported by the women in the village because farmers in the countryside, besides working during the seasons, have a lot of free time, and everyone wants a side job to earn extra income.

The first handicraft embroidery class was opened right in Ms. Thuy's own home. Initially, everyone learned while working. Later, with the help of the Provincial Industrial Promotion Department and the District Department of Labor, War Invalids & Social Affairs, each class received an additional 30-50 million VND to support the trainees. After completing the course, the women were paid for the finished products. In addition, Ms. Thuy also provided work for them to do at home. Through this persistent effort, over the past three years, she has opened 13 vocational training classes for women in the communes of Nam Thai, Nam Loc, Nam Thanh, and Nam Thuong, training hundreds of skilled embroiderers.

The network of workers who regularly produce goods for her alone numbers approximately 100 people. The Thanh Thuy Cooperative was established with the aim of bringing people together for easier management, transactions, and brand building. She also said that the name Thanh Thuy came from the former name of Nam Thanh commune, implying that these embroidered products are made by people from Nam Dan and must reflect the identity of Nam Dan. She has also shifted her business direction. While previously, the products were mainly exported to Ho Chi Minh City, now they are primarily produced for the provincial market. This is partly because during her survey, she noticed that Nam Dan has the Kim Lien historical site, but the souvenirs sold there are mostly from other provinces, while local products are almost non-existent. She wants to change the mindset of local vendors by offering products made by the artisans of the Thanh Thuy Cooperative.

It also took a short time for the head of Thanh Thuy Cooperative to come up with a design that could attract customers: images of President Ho Chi Minh's paternal and maternal hometowns. These are also the most beloved images that any visitor to Nam Dan wants to capture as a memento of "a visit to President Ho Chi Minh's hometown." The production process also gave her a lot of experience. For example, in the early days, she often made large-sized paintings, but later realized that if the products were too large, they were too expensive and cumbersome, unsuitable for long trips. So she switched to embroidering smaller paintings, just the size of an A4 sheet of paper. Customers liked them and bought more and more. To date, more than 80% of the paintings produced by her facility are sold at the Kim Lien Historical Site. The market outside the province also quite favors this type of painting, especially tourists visiting Ben Thanh Market in Ho Chi Minh City and handicraft shops.

With stable sales, Ms. Thuy has now created regular jobs for nearly 100 women workers in various communes, with an average income of 1 to 2 million VND per month. Ms. Thanh, a trainee at Thanh Thuy Cooperative in Nam Loc commune (Nam Dan district), said: "Embroidery is very suitable for rural women because they can take it home and use it during their free time. Students can also help their mothers with embroidery after school." Ms. Thuy, despite achieving certain results, is still not satisfied, believing that her designs are still quite limited and the quality of her products is not high enough. She is planning to select the most skilled embroiderers to attend advanced training to create high-end products. Then, not only tourists visiting Nam Dan but also customers throughout Nghe An province will be able to buy beautiful, high-quality embroidered paintings, comparable to those from famous craft villages. The price will then be only two-thirds or even much cheaper.

Song Hoang