Craftsman helps revive traditions
Four years ago, Kieu Duc Thuong set up a furniture business, which he named Hai Au. A skilled carpenter, Thuong is both designer and manager and is a minor celebrity in An Tuong Commune in Vinh Tuong District, Vinh Phuc Province.
The 30-year-old craftsman’s birthplace had two traditional woodcraft villages: Bich Chu and Thu Do. He has four brothers, all of whom are carpenters - a skill they inherited from their parents.
When Thuong finished secondary school in 1992, he found work as an assistant carpenter. However, the craft villages began to go down hill because of poor workmanship.
As a result, his family moved to Ha Noi, where his father opened a small carpentry shop in the outskirts of the city, but he was unfamiliar with urban tastes and his furniture sold badly.
Thuong decided to leave the family business to work as a cleaner in a high-rise building in the city centre. This experience was to prove invaluable, and Thuong realised that if he was to succeed in the furniture business, his designs would have to be more sophisticated and aesthetically pleasing. He travelled to Bac Ninh and Ha Tay provinces in the north which are famous for their handicrafts, to learn more about the furniture business.
Thuong then returned to school, and after graduating in 2000, suggested to his father that they return to An Tuong Commune to open a furniture shop on a 2000sqm plot of land they owned, even though the business in Ha Noi had started to make money. “To make a profitable business, I was determined to make sophisticated wooden furniture,” Thuong said, adding that to reduce costs, he cut down his own trees, rather than buy milled wood.
“At that time, the only thing we had was land, carpentry skills, determination and self-belief,” he said. “I had to borrow money to buy machines, but all of them were second-hand.”
Since setting up shop, Thuong’s company has received numerous orders both domestically and from abroad. In 2002, he won a Spanish contract to make a suite of furniture named “Lac Viet Furniture”, which won a silver medal in the Viet Nam Craft Villages Fair in 2006.
In April 2003, Hai Au Human Resources&Furniture Ltd Co was officially established with a view to helping young people in the village learn carpentry.
His plan received the backing of the local authority, which made it easier for him to borrow the money he needed to import the latest equipment from Germany and Spain.
His enterprise has grown year by year and now has an annual turnover of between VND2.5 billion to VND3 billion (US$190,000).
He employs a staff of 50, who each earn VND1.8-VND2 million ($113 - $125) a month.
In 2005, the Youth Union Central Committee presented him with the “Progressive young people” award and the Luong Dinh Cua Prize for his business achievements.
