Vietnamese villages are still remaining many special and popular trade villages, which contribute to the rich diversity of our country’s culture. One of the most famous trade villages which is listed is Bat Trang Pottery Village, which produces many exquisite and lively products that full of hometown’s colors.
This is one of the traditional villages still exist in Hanoi and is one of the interesting destinations in Hanoi traditional village tour organized by the Viet Unique Tours.
1. The origin of Bat Trang Pottery Village:
Bat Trang Pottery is a generic name for the pottery which is made from Bat Trang village (including Bat Trang village and Giang Cao villiage of Gia Lam district, Hanoi). According to the meaning of the Han letters, the word “Bat” means bowls, pottery and the word “Trang” (or “Truong”) is used to point the land which is reserved for the specialize.
There are many theories about the birth of Bat Trang pottery, one of these which is worth mentioning is that Bat Trang Pottery Village was formed after the Le dynasty, from the close link of 5 families of Bo Bat village as Tran, Vuong, Nguyen, Le, Pham and Nguyen.
After Ly Thai Tomoved the capital to Thang Long, Thang Long has become the political centre of Dai Viet up to now. A number of pottery workers also migrated here with Nguyen family and set up a new pottery, which was called Bach Tho ward (White Land Ward). The next batch of migrants turned Bat Trang from a normal pottery village into a famous pottery centre, which was chosed as the place to supply the offering for Ming dynasty at this time by the royal family.
2. The processes of making Bat Trang pottery:
To make a perfectly pottery, the workers must go through a chain of processes including selection stage, processing and mixing the soil, shaping and creating the patterns, enamel, and the last stage is firing products.
2.1. Choosing soil.
The first and also the most important thing to build up the pottery is the clay source. Bo Bat villagers choosed Bat Trang as the place to settle to develop the pottery because they discovered a white clay mine here.
2.2. Treatment and make up soil:
There are so much impurities in soli. In addition, according to many requirements of each different types of pottery, we have different methods to mix the soil with the aim of creating products. In Bat Trang, the traditional treatment method soil is immersing in a tank system, iclude 4 tanks with different height.
The highest tank is used to immerse the raw clay and water. Clay belows the influence of water will be destroyed its original structure and begins to disintegrate. When soil is heated, beaten it become tattered so that the soil particles actually dissolve into water in order to make a liquid mixture. After that, pour this mixture into the second tank which is called as the fliter tank. In here, clay begins to settle down, some impurities float above the surface of water. The workers need to remove them.
Ladle this dilute mixture to the third tank, “Drying tank”. Bat Trang people is used to drying soil here in about three days, after that, they move it to the forth tank, “Brewing tank”.
2.3. Creating shapes:
The traditional way of shaping pottery of Bat Trang Villagers is hand making on the turntable.
2.4. Dry and fix carpentry:
The fixed carpentry needs to be dried and repaired to complete. Carry out drying products but not too crack, do not change the shape of the product. The best way to use Bat Trang is drying the artifacts on the shelves and leave them in a cool place.
2.5. The process of decorating patterns and glazing:
Drawing techniques requires Bat Trang’s pottery workers use paints to brush directly on the background of carpentry. Pottery artists must have high skills, the decorative patterns must be in the harmony with the pottery shape. These decorations raise the pottery to high level of art. Bat Trang’s pottery artists also use variety of other decoration methods which own effective art such as marking, glazing colors.
2.6. Manufacturing enamel:
Asberstos is a special type of enamel of Bat Trang pottery. Bat Trang’s pottery artists are used to making enamel by mixing ingredients thoroughly and then stiring this mixture into water. After that, they wait until the mixture settle down, then remove the water on top and the waste on the bottom of the tank. They only take the floating in the middle and it is also the polish layer of enamel which is used to cover objects.
2.7. Enamel:
For finished products, the potter can preheat all products at low temperature then glaze it immediately, or they can enamel this completed carpentry before burning. The carpentry products must be cleaned with brush. The products which have ceramic colors mush have an enamel lining to cover the color of the ceramic bone.
2.8. Repairing the enamel:
The potter must remode the products before buring it.
2.9. The burning process:
When the work is done, burning become the most important stage to decide whether it succeed or not. Because of this reason, the time of burning pottery is very holy for the potters. The fire must be mastered according to the principle: gradually raising the temparature until the furnace reach the highest temparature and when the ceramic is heated, the temparature must be lowed slowly.
3. The variety of Bat Trang pottery:
Bat Trang’s pottery products have 5 specific enamels which are shown to create the most different products’s characteristics:
- Green enamel.
- Brown enamel.
- White enamel.
- Pearl enamel.
- Reef enamel.
Up to now, Bat Trang pottery village has produced a lot of products which are rich in variety of kinds and variety of designs. Bat Trang pottery not only appears in all parts of Vietnam but also become more famous in foreign markets. Since November 2004, the brand "Bat Trang - Vietnam" has been announced and officially promoted the brand for longstanding ceramic products of Vietnam in the world market. This event is an important step of the development of Bat Trang pottery village. This is an affirmation of Bat Trang pottery’s potentials in the process of developing and integrating into the world.
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