The "Don't Get Ripped Off" Guide to Vietnamese Gifts

International Living Postcards-- your daily escape

Monday, March 12, 2007
Dong Khoi, Vietnam

Deciding what to buy as a memento is mind-boggling. Vermilion-red bowls: $4. A black tray with silvered birds and willow trees: $10. A wall panel displaying mother-of-pearl junks sailing past the outcrops of Ha Long Bay: $24. A definite "no" to the garishly-pink bird cage, but how about a painting of Old Hanoi for $35?

Polished to a high sheen, Vietnamese lacquerware ( son mai) has a 2,000-year-old heritage. For most visitors, wall panels and paintings are particularly enticing items. Along with traditional rural scenes and modern designs, you’ll also see copies of masterpieces such as Klimt’s The Kiss. Some lacquer paintings cost as little as $10.

Just the thing to bring to the folks back home…or maybe a good opportunity to start a small sideline importing lacquerware.

However, don’t buy without learning something about the craft. And certainly not if you're considering import-export. Nowadays, many mass-market items are coated in artificial lacquer. Unlike real lacquer, made from resin from local cay son trees, its quick-drying counterpart comes from Japan. Another thing about synthetic lacquer is that it’s usually mixed with industrial paint instead of natural colorants. To reduce costs further, natural wood backings have been replaced by MDF (compressed wood shavings).

Traditional lacquerware goes through a complex process. Producing a single wall panel sometimes takes three months. The old-fashioned method calls for at least 11 coats of different-colored lacquer, with each left to dry thoroughly. Every layer is sanded before the next coat gets applied.

Fruits, soil, and minerals are used as lacquer pigments; inlaid designs are made from eggshells, mother-of-pearl, bone, silver and gold leaf. Although usually black, red, or brown, some background colors can be reddish-brownish. This doesn’t indicate inferiority; the overall color depends where pigments are applied within the lacquer layers.

Vietnam’s art capital, Hanoi, is a great lacquerware hunting ground. So, too, is Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), particularly along Dong Khoi and its sidestreets, which abound in art and craft treasures. But prices can vary wildly for wall panels adorned with mother-of pearl images of Vietnam’s "four mystic creatures."

Usually sold in sets of four, the long (dragon), lan (unicorn), quy (turtle), and phung (phoenix) bestow wealth, luck, love, and power. For the four panels, total size approximately 24 x 48 inches, prices varied between $60 and $300. In one instance a set was just under $50, but the "lacquer" was already chipping.

I eventually purchased at the oddly-named Handicapped Handicrafts workshop near Ho Chi Minh City. Trained as artisans, most workers here are speech/hearing impaired or were born suffering the effects of defoliant toxins from the Vietnam conflict.

It’s one of 22 local outlets with government approval "to be designated shops of the high standard needed in serving tourists" (Vietnam is still a Communist country, remember). Prices aren’t the cheapest--I paid $130 for a set of four lacquered mother-of-pearl paintings of the mystic creatures--but they are quality products. Plus, according to the saleslady I spoke with, they give special discounts for importers: http://www.27-7.com.vn. The street address is: Cong-Ty 27-7 Handicapped Handicrafts, 52/5 Duong Cong Khi, Xa Xuan Thoi Son, Ho Chi Minh City.

Steenie Harvey
Roving Travel Writer, International Living

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P.S. Tune in tomorrow for one reader's success story as a new importer-exporter.