Dong Ky carpentry village

Dong Ky is 15km north-east of Hanoi.Dong Ky was at one time known as the ‘firecracker village’. Prior to 1995 (when the Government banned fire crackers) there was always a firecracker festival in Dong Ky. A competition for the loudest firecracker once resulted in the building of a gargantuan 16m long firecracker.

With the firecracker industry now extinguished, the village survives by producing beautiful traditional furniture inlaid with mother-of-pearl. If you wish, you can have handcrafted furniture custom-made here and exported directly to your address abroad. Arranging the payment may prove a bit tricky if you are leaving Vietnam before the final product is produced and shipped. 

Dong Ky is well-known for its craft of making things of wood with high artistic sophistication. The whole village, in the day-time is full of sawing and chiselling sounds. The main articles made there are furniture of high quality: tables, chairs, cupboards and ornate beds.

To make these products, many kinds of precious wood are used: talauma for big furniture to support a great weight; Sindora wood, iron wood (Erythophloum) and Cliukrusiu tabiHuris for the objects whose surface must be polished; for smaller furniture to be finely carved and decorated, the manglietia is preferred, and so on.

There are not only traditional models such as cupboards, ornate beds, etc. but also modern ones: drawing-room furniture, wardrobes, etc. As to the decoration, everything is artistically carved and also inlaid with mother-of-pearl of seven colours. The motifs are numerous: grass, flowers, trees, leaves, butterflies, bees or human figures, river and mountain and so on. You will surely be surprised by the highly artistic products of modest ordinary artisans.