Discovering Craft Villages in Vietnam

With their festivals and traditional industries, their commun halls, pagodas,
temples, and vernacular buildings, the villages around Hà Nội possess a rich
body of cultural, architectural and craft heritage. Less than one hour from
the capital are over 500 specialist craft villages, producing an array of
religious or artistic objects, as well as food products, industrial goods,
textiles, basketware and much more. Despite the trials and tribulations
Vietnam has endured, these traditions have remained alive; today they
consti­tute the basis of material, social and spiritual culture among the
village communities of the Red River delta. The artisans themselves, and their
local institutions, see cultural tourism as a way of further improving the
fortunes of the craft village communities and bringing their heritage to wider
attention. Until recently, few guides or tourists had forayed into these
settle­ments, some of which are lost in the maze of routes and tracks that
criss-cross the rice paddies of the Hà Nội hinterland. The history and skills
they harbour have been inaccessible to all but a few specialists. Few of the
villages are signposted, yet between them they are home to three quarters of
the architectural, religious and craft heritage of the upper delta. This book,
the fruit of several years' research by specialists working in northern
Vietnam, comprises ten itineraries, blending potted histories, legends,
descriptions of craft techniques, signposted walks and maps, designed to
introduce travellers and lovers of Vietnamese culture to forty or so villages
around Hà Nội. Many of us have seen their wares on sale in shops in and around
the 36 streets of Hà Nội Old Quarter or in other cities in West. This book is
about the true lives and enduring skills of the nameless artisans who made
them.

*[XVIIIe]: 18e siècle
*[ xix e]: 19e siècle
*[3e]: Troisième