Handicraft fans can enjoy a traditional craft village space in Thang Long Imperial Citadel, running from Thursday till Sunday. 

"The 2016 Hanoi Traditional Craft Village Tourism Festival is among a series of annual events aiming to promote traditional craft villages of Hanoi and other localities," said Deputy Chairman of Hanoi's People’s Committee, Ngo Van Quy in his opening remarks.

This is also an opportunity for the craft villages to meet with tourism agencies to develop tourism in these traditional villages, said Quy.

“This year festival had some innovative changes to keep pace with the demand of visitors and tourists. This is the result of co-operation between Hanoi and related departments in developing tourism,” said Quy.

This year’s festival features two simulations of Bat Trang pottery village and Van Phuc silk village, an area where artisans of seven types of crafts perform their skills, 250 booths displaying traditional handicrafts and photo exhibitions of Vietnamese tourism and craft villages.

At the silk village simulation space, festival-goers can witness silk-making procedures. Mulberry branches, live silkworms and weaving machinery were brought from a local silk village to the festival. Dozens of soft textured colourful silk threads with unique patterns being sun dried are also on show.

“This is the first time we have attended a festival like this. A craft village has to have a long tradition of making handicrafts to be selected by the department of tourism,” said head of Thiệu Đô commune’s Farmer Association, Nguyễn Hữu Hùng.

“People in Thiệu Đô commune have been weaving silk for years, it is a pity that the young have lost interest in making silk. Through the festival, I hope the government will pay more attention to traditional craft villages, especially those on the verge of fading,” said Hung.

Bat Trang pottery village features an actual sized village entrance gate and a pottery road with hundreds of pottery products ranging from tiny bowls to large decorative vases with varied colours and patterns. Visitors can also talk with artisans and make pottery under their guidance.

Among more than 1,000 traditional craft villages over the country, those on show at the festival includ Phú Vinh rattan, Chang Son fan, Bat Trang pottery, Ha Thai lacquer, Ngu Xa bronze, Quat Dong handmade embroidery and Dinh Cong silver encrust, Uoc Le ham and sausage and Vong green rice flake village.

Among them, Chang Son fan village booth features layers of fans of different sizes, colours and styles arranged in a bamboo setting by Nguyen Ngoc Tuyen. Though he is an architect, Tuyen and his cousin are active in the family business of fan making.

“Preserving this beautiful tradition is essential. My cousin and I share a passion with fan making. We try to bring new ideas and creativity into this old tradition”, said 24-year-old Tuyen.

“I hope the festival will help our traditional villages be better known and tours to the locality will be better promoted,” said Tuyen.

A glimpse of wooden paintings encrusted with mussels by hand is also a draw to visitors. The delicate paintings, some of which take years to finish, are on show in the Chuyen My craft village booth of artisan Nguyen Van Lang. While the other villagers only use mussels for daily items like chopsticks, trays, chairs, tables and simple decorative ornaments, Lăng encrusts mussels on artful wood paintings.

Apart from craft villages, festival goers can also enjoy a variety of dishes like phở, bún, (noodle with beef or chicken), miến (vermicelli), chè (sweet tapioca soup) and buy specialties like cốm (green rice flakes), bánh chưng (rice cake with green bean and pork inside) and giò chả (Vietnamese ham and sausage).

The festival opened to the public on Thursday and runs till Sunday at Thang Long Imperial Citadel, 19C Hong Dieu Street, Hanoi.

On Hanoi's 62nd Liberation Day on October 10, a photo exhibition dubbed “Hanoi in me” opens on Saturday at the same place.

The exhibition, themed Hanoi architecture heritage, hosted by Economics and Urban newspaper and Senior Age Photographer Club aims to affirm the tremendous values of the architectural heritage of Hanoi and to preserve the diversity of architectural culture.

The exhibition is expected to promote the image of the capital of Hanoi.

More than 80 photographs classified into “Thang Long-Hanoi architecture heritage impression”, “Captial’s architecture in integration period” and “Heritage preservation work” will be exhibited.

The photos were taken by Senior Age Photographer Club members and journalists of Economics and Urban newspaper. 

VNS