See craftsmen making fishing hooks in My Hoa Village

Flooding season is the perfect time for tourists to experience the authentic floating daily life of the Mekong Delta.
Some local women make fishing hooks at the My Hoa fishing hook craft village in Long Xuyen City.
This is also the harvest season for local fishermen who always need top-quality fishing hooks.
Located around 1.5 kilometers from downtown Long Xuyen City along the section of Long Xuyen River-Sap Mountain, My Hoa fishing hook craft village is where tourists should stop by to take a glimpse of a craft which is rustic and simple.
A section of about 500 meters near Muong Thi Bridge in My Hoa Ward is home to many households making fishing hooks. There people make hooks in diverse sizes and types to meet the demands of fishermen in the delta and many coastal regions. The brand name Muong Tho Thi is exported around the country, to national goods fairs and exhibitions. The hooks in the craft village are also exported to Laos and Cambodia.
Making fishing hooks is an auxiliary job which producers do in their free time. The craft is handed down the generations and has existed for over half a century in the village. The craft can be made in many processes by producers aged anywhere from ten to 70.
Nguyen Van Tuyen, a fourth generation member of a hook-producing family, said that a long time ago a fishing boat came to the area and the fishermen asked locals to make fishing hooks and when the orders got too much, Tho, the pioneer, asked the villagers to work together. Since then, the craft was born and kept the village in business.
Producers not only make hooks for catching fish, they also produce hooks for turtles, snakes, frogs, shrimps and other marine life.
A hook looks simple but creating a hook requires some important phases. First, the craftsman will stretch out a metal string made of stainless steel imported from South Korea or Japan, and then they cut the strings into short chunks. Those chunks will be sharpened, modeled and bent and put on a fire to be created into a particular shape or size.