Bronze casting villages and rice paper ones in DIen Khanh District are working at full capacity to meet expected high demand for Tet Holiday...
Bronze casting villages and rice paper ones in DIen Khanh District are working at full capacity to meet expected high demand for Tet Holiday.
100-year-old Phu Loc Tay 1 bronze casting village, Dien Khanh Town, Dien Khanh District becomes busy entering the most marketable season of a year.
 |
| Rice paper makers are working at full capacity. |
64-year-old Bien Cu, an experienced artisan usually receives orders of 50 worship item sets a month. Orders double on the New Year season. Besides bronze casting, his family also makes other items, including mechanical components.
Consumption markets include communities inside and outside Khanh Hoa Province such as Phu Yen, Binh Dinh, Thua Thien Hue, Ninh Thuan, Binh Thuan and Ho Chi Minh City.
According to Bien Cu, lunar New Year is a boom season for the bronze casting village. This year, due to material and fuel cost increase, each set of worship items, including censers, a candlestick and a vase costs VND2.2 - 3.2 million, a year-on-year increase of VND100,000.
Tran Minh Nguyen, an owner of a bronze casting establishment says his workplace is open until night during days in the run-up to New Year and 4 or 5 worship item sets, a three-fold increase compared with normal days, are produced.
“We can earn over VND500,000 a day on lunar New Year occasion. Besides production, our work is also polishing old worship items for VND50,000/ set,” he adds.
Reportedly, bronze casting process includes making molds, welding, heating and polishing. Each household is engaged in a specific procedure.
Nguyen Van Nhuong, Chairman of Phu Loc Bronze Casting Collective, Dien Khanh District says the traditional career village has about 40 bronze casting households, producing some 5,000 worship item sets sold inside and outside Khanh Hoa Province.
Like in the bronze casting village, everyone in a traditional rice paper village in Phu Loc Dong 3 Residential Group, Dien Khanh Town is also busy with kindling fire, mixing flour, spreading batter onto a cloth stretched over a wide pot of boiling water, drying cakes, etc.
Nguyen Kim Ho says, “My family has made rice paper for 50 years. We get attached the work for such a long time.” His family earns VND150,000-200,000 on a normal day and much more on New Year occasion.
Dang Thi Loc, a rice paper maker, gets up at 3 am everyday to work. Her mother named Huynh Thi Ngoan says, “We work until night these days to make rice papers to meet high demand during Tet holiday.”
N.T
