Located about 25km from Hanoi, Dong Ky commune of Tu Son district, Bac Ninh province has long been famous for the production of craft products from wood. It is also supposed as the richest village in Vietnam.
In the old time, the villagers suffered the famine and had to worry every meal. The farming land is less, doing agriculture is just enough to eat if it has a good weather, vice versa, there is a little rice to eat. To feed a family is an extremely struggle. Find it impossible to live if only expect to agriculture, with the available traditional carpentry, the men in the village have told each other to rely on his father's job as a livelihood. Since then, the villagers went throughout the country to make cabinets, beds, houses, gates. And, through the successive generations, sons to adulthood often are trained vocation, and then follow their parents roamed everywhere. Women in the village find selling orders to deal to Hanoi or nearby provinces. With their hardworking, the villagers are rewarded.
From about after 1975 when they moved to the south, they saw the demand for antique furniture of people was very great here. Therefore, the villagers collected and bought antique furniture from many places and sold for those people. However, the products were become less and less, the Dong Ky people with inherent ingenuity has devised the new way to do business, making lifelike antique furniture. Unexpected results, those customers were amazed by products made by Dong Ky people, they foundd it so ingenious, were satisfied and agreed to pay a high price. From these times, the carpentry of Dong Ky village entered an era of flourished.
Go through the village, visitors can catch the steady and merry sounds. They are cutting, carving, and grinding sounds. Going inside the factory, tourists can feel the urgent and serious working atmosphere workers. All stages of doing a product, from the movements that need to use power movements such as saws, chisels to the stage which requires meticulousness as carving, are completed by the skillful hands of artisans in a mature and accurate way.
These wood factories will create products with high aesthetic, artistic and economical values. Wooden handicraft products with intricate lines such as the products carved with the special patterns of the dragon and the phoenix’s images. Especially, Dong Ky handicraft products are often made following classic designs, the most typical characteristic attracting a large number of buyers.
Discover Dong Ky Carpentry village, visitors can be surprised by the delicate beauty of wooden products. Moreover, the products of Dong Ky village are not only specialized in one line of product. Guests can see various kinds of products with different types of patterns. Apart from the simple items of household furniture, there are series of products that can be carved ingeniously with a wide range species from birds and mammals to flowers, leaves making these items very attractive and eye-catching.
