Van Lam embroidery village

Van Lam village in Dong Hai commune, Hoa Lu district, Ninh Binh province was previously called O Lam (Forest of crows). In addition to its rich cultural and historical tradition, the village is famous for its traditional embroidery craft.  Located by the famous Tam Coc-Bich Dong tourist site, the village has become a popular tourist destination. 

The embroidery craft appeared in Van Lam village in the 13th century in the Tran dynasty. At the gate of the village, there is an ancient temple dedicated to the founder of the local embroidery craft. Vu Thanh Lam, a local elder, says Van Lam people worship the founder of the embroidery craft on the 15th day of the first lunar month: “Legends say that Ms Tran Thi Dung, the Great Tutor Tran Thu Do’s wife, came to the village with other people of the Tran royal family and taught local people the weaving and embroidery crafts. The first local products were clothes decorated with bird patterns and parallel sentences and robes for the royal family. Since then, the embroidery craft has become popular among local people. Van Lam embroidery products have found their way to other regions of Vietnam and overseas. We set up this temple to show our deep gratitude to the founder of the craft and to preserve the craft”.

The temple also worships Dinh Xuan Nghenh and Dinh Xuan Xoan, who brought the lace craft to the village in the early 20th century. 

Local women demonstrate their embroidery craft at the Tam Coc wharf while waiting for boat customers. As the craft is handed down through generations, most people in Van Lam get involved in creating embroidery and lace. Men in the village master the embroidery craft just like the women. With thin colorful threads, the skillful hands of local artisans make embroidery products that are as sophisticated and beautiful as masterpieces of art. Ms Nguyen Thi Lua of Van Lam village says embroidery is a detailed craft: “We cannot say how long it takes to make an embroidery picture because it depends on the type of the picture that we make. It takes more time to make more detailed and larger pictures. The craft requires artisans to master every step”. 

In Van Lam village, nearly 700 households make embroidery pictures. Each house in the village is a workshop whose artisans are family members.

Van Lam embroidery products are famous not only in Vietnam but also overseas. In recent years, they have been exported to Japan, the US, Germany and France. Van Lam artisans are constantly creating new products and modifying their products to meet market demand. They have created more than 200 lace patterns and combined embroidery and lace to make beautiful pictures. Ms Lua says:“Customers’ needs are diverse. Some people like blankets, some like table cloths, mattresses or clothes. They are interested in seeing how we make embroidery pictures. We always try to make quality products to introduce to customers”.

Van Lam people have organized package tours to introduce tourists to local scenic spots and embroidery craft. Decorative patterns depicting the Vietnamese countryside, charming Vietnamese girls, and flowers on Van Lam embroidery products are most impressive.

Quat Dong village

Along Highway No. 1A about twenty kilometers south from Hanoi, is the patrimonial land of traditional embroidery: the Quat Dong commune, Thuong Tin district. Scenes formed by the highly-skilled artisans of Quat Dong have won the hearts and minds of people around the world with their traditional needle-work in this most-famous embroidery village.

According to family annals, the ancestor of Quat Dong embroidery, also revered as the patriarch of Vietnamese embroidery, is Le Cong Hanh. Born in 1606, he became a well-known scholar of his time when, as a member of the King’s envoy, he traveled to China where he learned a new embroidery technique. Upon return to Vietnam, he taught this new technique to the poor villagers of Quat Dong with all his heart, and it remains a strong tradition to this day. Ever since then, he has been regarded as the master and patriarch of Vietnamese embroidery. The anniversary of his death is revered throughout Vietnam on June 12th of every year.

For many Quat Dong villagers, embroidery is considered a long-standing tradition. All villagers, regardless of age and gender, do intricate needle-work. Visitors will forever remember the image of a young girl sitting next to her great-grandmother, being taught lessons handed down for generations in exactly the same manner amidst the fragrance of rice fields gently waving in an afternoon breeze. The art of embroidery is taught within the family, and a potential daughter-in-law wooed from a neighboring village will soon learn the same skills taught only in this quiet village. To the onlooker, it may seem to be simple or relaxing work because there is no laboring under a hot sun, or being subject to the torrential downpours of a seasonal shower. However this work requires an extremely skillful and steady hand, an eye for the most intricate details, a demanding concentration, and a thorough commitment to producing only the highest quality.

In order to successfully complete a detailed and intricate scene, the embroiderer has to first capture the image they wish to convey, whether it be sitting quietly to observe the sun setting over a forest lake, or examining an artist’s rendition of a moment in time. Next is to stretch and test the fabric, inspecting the weave for imperfections or discoloration. This is followed by making a detailed sketch on the fabric and selecting the perfect thread colors to convey the desired contrasts and shadows. Once the needle work begins, the most time consuming challenges the artisan must face are to form gently curving edge lines while presenting the most intricate and minute details such as the veins of a leaf, the early morning shades and shadows within the cusp of a flower, or the fire in the eyes of a rising phoenix. In order to do so successfully, the embroiderer must flawlessly combine and mingle the chosen threads with a steady hand for hours on end. They must focus on the harmony of nature to capture a frozen moment of life in the needle they have been so well acquainted with since childhood, utilizing the same skills taught five centuries earlier by Le Cong Hanh to the ancestors of today’s artisans. Today, these skills continue to attract the attention of foreign markets to this quiet village of Vietnam.