Shoehorning into the modern age

Along the main road in Thuy Ung Village in Hanoi are a line of shops displaying dragons, phoenixes, turtles, dishes, combs and a host of other artistic items made of cattle horn.
The cattle-horn art has a history of more than 400 years here. Until the 1970s, Thuy Ung was the main supplier of horn combs to the northern region but it suffered a decline until 1986 before doi moi (renovation) helped spark off a revival.
The village has more than 3,000 people, with nearly 90 percent involved in making souvenirs from buffalo horns, according to its chief, Nguyen Tuan Anh.
“The government recognized Thuy Ung as a Handicraft Village in July 2008,” he says.
In a small house, an old man diligently works on a 1.5- meter-high artwork. It represents a dragon dancing around a phoenix and is called Long Phuong Ky Duyen (Marvelous love between dragon and phoenix).
Nguyen Van Kien, 70, began his career when he was just 13 and is now famous for making unusual objects.
“Making artworks from horns is difficult because every horn is different. The biggest difficulty is deciding what to make from a particular piece,” he says.
Tran Van Thuy, 39, owns a small factory with six workers. “All the parts of a buffalo can be used - like horns, hide, toenails, even its tail hair,” he says.
He explains the process of making an artwork from cattle horn. Workers extract the hard core before softening the horns by soaking them in boiling oil. They are then pressed flat in machines and cut into pieces.
From these pieces, workers make combs, spoons, bowls, dishes, and other products. The products are polished to give them their typical black color.
Their prices range from VND5,000 (US$0.30) for a comb to VND7 million ($400) for a pair of mounted African bull horns.
Thuy says the products are sold in large cities like Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City and have begun to attract buyers from China, Japan and Western countries.
“Some foreigners have come to ask us to make a buckle or gun stock.
“We are satisfied that people around the world know about Vietnam’s skilful artists,” he says proudly.