Hanoi

There are some things one already knows before travelling to Vietnam. One of those things is: My luggage will be heavier as it should be when I will return to Europe.

The beautiful products of silk and especially ceramics are the reason why – and thus, a visit to the village of Ba Trang was inevitable for me. Anyway, as we live in a globalized world, ceramics from southeast-asia are quite a challenge for ceramics in Europe.

We drive through the countryside, leaving Hanoi’s busy streets to see lots and lots of half-built buildings, which prizes are comparable to german houses – although salaries of people working in Germany are a lot higher. After maybe half an hour, we reach Bat Trang, a little village, so I’ve learned, that is famous almost in all parts of Vietnam.

We pass one shop after the next before we reach the market. An old woman immediately offers to show us how she produces her ceramics, but we head for the market stalls first. I wonder, why these storage recks don’t collapse under the weight of all those cups, tea pots and plates. While going through the small corridors, I am afraid to destroy something. An old woman even warns me to take care with my big handbag. In Germany, I have never seen anything like Bat Trang although there is also a rich tradition of fine ceramics.

For example, the first European porcelain was produced in 1708 in a city called Meißen. The “Meissener Porzellan Manufaktur” is still famous today – but can’t be compared to Bat Trang: The porcelain produced in this german enterprise is very expensive and collected as art. A cup may cost 200 Euros (that is 5 000 000 Dong) - expensive for Germans. A normal prize for a normal cup in Germany would be about 125 000 to 250 000 Dong.

This way, anything at Bat Trang seems very cheap to me – and looks exotic as well. I cannot really decide what to buy first, always thinking about the weight of my luggage. Instead of buying, I talk to Phuong: The young Vietnamese woman is working at Bat Trang since four years. “My family has a very big workshop here”, she tells me. Phuong learned how to burn ceramics the traditional way when she was 16. “My father, mother, grandfather produced ceramics. My family is in this business since more than a hundred years.”

The village of Bat Trang itself is very old, too. The enterprise “CK&T CERAMICS Co,.LTD”, exporting ceramics from the little village to the whole world, reports that the National Museum of Vietnamese History in Hanoi has a collection of ceramics from Bat Trang dating back 700 years. In accordance with this source, nowadays the village is extremely successful, exporting ceramic goods to the value of over $40 million annually. In a globalized world, the boom of selling ceramics to cheap prizes from southeast-asia is affecting European and American markets, leading to fusions of traditional enterprises. In 2009, both sales and total number of employees concerning the industry for fine ceramics in Germany decreased as the IGBCE (industry workers union for mining, chemistry and energy) reports.

Even in Bat Trang, there are some small references to the worldwide trade: At the workshop for new ceramic goods, I discover little Halloween-products, maybe for the American market. Smiling pumpkins and skulls, but also figurines similar to Micky Mouse and Donald Duck. Anyhow, the globalization is not much of concern for friendly Mrs Hang right now: During the morning, Bat Trang has been cut off electricity – so that all salesman and –woman like her are directly confronted with the cold weather. Mrs Hang is hugging a heating pad to stand the frostiness. She needs to endure the situation for quite a while, working from 8 o’clock till 17 o’clock. Anyhow, she hasn’t been ill – and stays friendly and relaxed. Me, I am not that brave: One lovely plate and two bowls in my bag, I am heading back to the inner city of Hanoi for some hot tea.