Craft village of wooden shoes

At wooden shoes production workshop.

Along with sculpture and carpentry, Binh Duong has a craft village of making wooden shoes in Phu Tho ward, Thu Dau Mot city and Binh Nham, Thuan An town. After up and down, wooden shoes making becomes a unique cultural character in Binh Duong. However, wooden shoes making in Phu Thi and Binh Nham has faced risk of oblivion.

The vicissitudes of wooden shoes village

According to many people in Phu Tho and Binh Nham, wooden shoes village has appeared for hundreds of years. In Phu Van of Phu Tho ward exists a road named wooden shoes village where have many families living on making wooden shoes. Before the Southern liberation day, wooden shoes making in Binh Nham has developed strongly. Every household had 5-7 workers making wooden shoes.

In the golden era, the craft village of wooden shoes brought a comfortable life for local residents and contributed greatly to local economic development. However, the work experienced many vicissitudes to develop further.

Thai Van Tu in Binh Hoa quarter, Binh Nham ward said that his family has 3 generations of making wooden shoes but now only he still follows this work. To continue this work, he had to experience 4 times of bankruptcy. According to Tu, output of wooden shoes is very unstable.

Le Van Hieu, chairman of Binh Nham ward People’s Committee said that 15 years ago, wooden shoes making in Binh Nham plunged obviously, owing to strong decrease on demand.

Seeking out ways for export

Thai Van Anh Hung, the owner of Hung Thai wooden shoes Co.Ltd. bravely applies advanced machines into making up high quality products. He manages to bring his product to foreign nations. Until now, the company’s products have been exported to nations such as Japan, Taiwan, Malaysia and more and some countries in the EU.

At present, the company has placed jobs for more than 80 workers with income of VND3-5mil per capita per month. Notably, the company leads in preserving traditional craft in Binh Nham.

Possibly speaking, with motivation and ambition, Thai Van Anh Hung has constantly created various models of wooden shoes to bring his products to foreign nations, contributing to preserve a traditional craft and unique cultural character of the locality.

Reported by D.LE – Translated by A.C