lang-gom-trung-dong Location: The pottery village of Trung Dong is part of Van Binh commune, Van Ninh district, some 03km to the north of Van Gia town.

The pottery village of Trung Dong is part of Van Binh commune, Van Ninh district, some 03km to the north of Van Gia town.

So far, no one (even the oldest craftspeople) from the village has been able to know exactly when this craft community was established. Hazy recollections can only trace back a history of  some 200 years, when pottery craftspeople from Phung Tuong and Binh Tien villages of Phu Yen province came to settle in Trung Dong, bringing along their profession.

From local sources, the clay would be repeatedly and finely kneaded by potters who then put the clay body onto a turntable and skillfully make it into pots, big-bellied jars, oven, flower-vases…The final products come out after being properly fired in furnaces.

For nearly two centuries, the pottery products of Trung Dong have entered everyday life of  the people in the locality and an amount of the items have been sold out to many marketplaces both in the province and in the whole country. Today, with the advance of science and technology, utensils made from other materials and more competitive in design, convenience, as well as prices have presented Trung Dong pottery products lots of market challenges. Yet, many craft families of the village have been still seeking every possible way to preserve and hand down this age-old traditional craft to later generations.

Though the village’s traditional craft of today has lost its prosperity of the golden days, once visiting the place one would see with their own eyes the whole manual process of making pottery items and understand more the creativeness in making handicrafts serving everyday life.