Revival
With the theme “Quintessence of Vietnamese Craftsmanship”, Hue Traditional Craft Festival expresses the goal of preserving, developing and promoting traditional crafts and villages in the city in particular, as well as craft villages inside and outside the province in general.
The active participation and enthusiastic response of enterprises and establishments producing souvenirs - gifts and Hue specialties increasingly contribute to bringing tourists to craft villages within the framework of the festival as well as tours after the festival. This is a premise to contribute to the restoration and preservation of traditional crafts, job creation and preservation of traditional culture in localities.
According to Bao La Bamboo and Rattan Cooperative Director, Mr. Vo Van Dinh, Hue Traditional Craft Festival arouses the potential, creativity, and design passion of artisans and craftsmen, thereby contributing to conserving and restoring traditional crafts and villages.
Through festivals, artisans have the opportunity to meet, exchange and compare their products with those of domestic craft villages, in addition to continuously increasing sales, thereby drawing experience to modify and adapt their products to meet the market demands.
Vice Chairman of Hue City’s People's Committee, Deputy Head of the Organizing Committee of Hue Traditional Craft Festival 2023, Mr. Truong Dinh Hanh said that, as compared to the first Hue Traditional Craft Festivals held, up to now, businesses and establishments have had a great changes in modifying their products to meet the market demand. Many craft villages have shifted from just producing consumer goods or decorating interior – exterior products to developing into impressive craft village tours to attract visitors such as Thuy Xuan incense village, Thanh Tien paper flowers village, Phu Cam conical hat, Phu Duong banh tet (cylindrical sticky rice cake), Duc Buu banh beo (water fern-shaped cake), banh nam (flat steamed rice cakes) and banh loc (sticky rice dumplings), etc.
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| Ao Dai products being displayed and introduced at Hue Traditional Craft Festivals |
The demand for a stage
In addition to restoring and developing traditional crafts and villages as well as promoting brands and products in the area, Hue Traditional Craft Festival still has many limitations. These include not regularly maintaining the activities of displaying, introducing and demonstrating the profession to serve tourists; not allocating investment resources to restoring and developing traditional craft villages. Therefore, some traditional crafts are still “produced on a household scale, with low productivity”.
Besides, the modification of products is limited. Some products are handmade, so the price is high, making it difficult to compete with similar products on the market. The consumption market is also limited, so craft village establishments have not focused on investing in modern machinery for production.
According to Ms. Doan Trang, an Ao Dai designer, with the desire to put the Ao Dai on the catwalk to introduce to locals and tourists, her enterprise often designs many unique collections of Ao Dai to perform on stages inside and outside the country. In Hue, however, except for the stages at big festivals, her enterprise does not have ‘stage’ to promote the traditional Ao Dai to tourists.
In addition to the center to display and introduce products of the bronze casting village in Phuong Duc ward, there hasn’t been any centers to display and introduce craft village products in the area of Hue City up to now. Therefore, many establishments have to “deposit” products at hotels and restaurants with high fees, and craft village products are also difficult to access to tourists.
Maintaining activities
In order to bring craft village products closer to tourists and businesses to stimulate the demand for products, Hue City’s People's Committee has basically completed the renovation and embellishment of the space at 15 Le Loi (Vinh Ninh ward) to display, introduce and demonstrate craft village products.
At the same time, it is important to complete the infrastructure of the city center areas; renovate the space of Nguyen Dinh Chieu pedestrian street, Thuong Bac park; mobilize enterprises and vocational establishments to embellish their production facilities to welcome visitors.
Mr. Truong Dinh Hanh emphasized that with this year’s Hue Traditional Craft Festival, the city aimed to put the cultural - creative industry as one of the development focus not only to create the interference between traditional and modern cultures, but ensure to preserve the values and quintessence of traditional crafts as well.
Therefore, in addition to the space to display and introduce craft village products inside and outside the country, the city will organize seminars with the theme of conservation and development of traditional crafts for businesses and artisans. In the long term, the space at 15 Le Loi will be a space to exhibit creative products and craft village products in the area, some of which will be selected to display and exchange with provinces and cities such as Ao Dai, fine art carpentry, bamboo and rattan, paper flowers, etc.
The goal of the city after the festival is to maintain the organization of programs and activities to promote traditional crafts; mobilizing capital for industrial promotion to finance machinery and equipment for craft village establishments, creating favorable conditions to borrow capital; at the same time, maintaining Hue cultural experiences through the organization of tours for students from schools in the area to visit and have experience in craft villages and a number of other practical activities.