In Vietnam, the lanes are really just the width of an alley in the United States. Subtract from that, the width of two bricked sidewalks, filled with parked motor bikes, many blocking convenient access to the open shops, and you have a typical old Hanoi street.
The car was hired with a driver and fuel for the day, by Tim. We were traveling about 100 kilometers north of Hanoi to a city of the name Y Yen. This city was known to us as Bamboo Village. The cost for the day's journey would be 850,000 dong, or about $53.13.
Y Yen is in the Nam Dinh province. Tim wanted to tour the factor which produced most of the raw bamboo product he imported to Australia. Tim had been purchasing this product through Viet Phat. Viet Phat represented a middleman for everything except the colored, lacquered ware. So, Tim's mission was to meet with the principals of Bamboo Village and end up dealing straight through them.
On the way out of the city, we stopped to pick Duong up at her home. A little further down the road we picked up the owner of the factory. The owner, Tuan, lived in Hanoi and drove several times a week to Y Yen and back. All settled into the air-conditioned van, off we drove.
Except for a few kilometers of four lane highways, the entire trip was on two lane roads. Leaving Hanoi at eight thirty in the morning caught us up in the going to work traffic. Up to this time I had been blown away by the vehicle chaos on the city's streets. There had been nothing, however, to prepare me for the rush hour level of Buddhist mayhem that was occurring this morning. Toe-to-head traffic was barely interrupted by trucks, motor bikes and pedestrians crossing traffic at right angles. The din of horns was ceaseless. Out of nowhere a scooter, carrying three adults and a child, would pull along side my passenger side window. Then, without appearing to look to his left, the driver would cut and cross in front of the van; to emerge on the left of the car or bikes in front of us.
Perhaps 50% of all motorbikes are driven by older women or young ladies. Most of the time, the female driver would be carrying a woman on the seat behind her, or perhaps, a child holding on tight. Often a woman would be driving with a small child standing on the food board in front of the seat, with eyes looking over the handle bar instrument cluster.
The trip took us three hours. Of that time, about two hours was required to exit the greater Hanoi urban area. Now there were vast acres of flat, open agriculture. Most of the fields were hand cultivated rice and vegetables. Very large, horned cattle spotted the grassed acres. Water buffalo pulling a hand plow etched the rich soil.
The owner of the bamboo business had taken over the driving from the nodding taxi-hire about an hour back. The first thing the hire did after he got in the very back of the van was to light up a cigarette. He had then become quite alert and chatty. We finally enter Y Yen. There seemed to be little industry in this small city.
Tuan pulled to the left, in front of his personally owned part of the bamboo factory. Tuan is actually just the coordinator of production. I guess he could be called the general manager. For that job he receives a portion of the monthly profit. It is Tuan's roll to take the orders and assign the production of the products to one or more of the several families who make up the Bamboo Village factory.
Tuan grew up in Y Yen and learned the many aspects of his trade craft while working under his father's supervision. In time, because of his learned skills and his natural leadership abilities, Tuan became the leader of his village co-operative.
The stay at Tuan's building was short. We soon found our way, slowly maneuvering on very narrow dirt lanes, across patches of cut rice plants, to a dense residential part of the town. The van was parked in the rutted lane. We were led to a path which passed stone walls with white stucco. These walls defined individual home lots. The first home we entered appeared to be an initial greeting place for factory guests.
We were shown to a small hand carved wooden table where each of us took a chair. Once seated, a woman came to the table and poured glasses of water. Remember, when traveling abroad, don't drink the water. I found myself caught between a custom trap and host formality. Down it went.
I was surprised at how refreshing the water was. Plus, it was crystal clear and had no hints of bad taste. The end of travel-rest lasted only a couple of minutes. There was no time for conversation. We arose and followed Tuan.
Our first stop was at an open, but covered, concrete floor area that was attached to the back side of a home. There were two boys working on the floor. One was busy splitting one meter lengths of bamboo into half inch strips. His tool was a machete. Once he created a small pile of thin slats, he would pass each through a small planer which stripped the half millimeter outer green layer from the stick.
The bamboo sticks were then used by the second boy. He would run each stick through a small curling machine. The electric machine would put a constant radius of curvature on each piece. When the machine did this, it also pressed indentations across the stick. The boy then used the pre-curved pieces and inserted them into the flat circular piece he was making.
The boy began with a pre-sized outer circle of bamboo. Concentrically smaller circles were formed by the pieces he inserted. When the wide plate was left with only a two inch hole at its center, the boy would insert a small cone made from bamboo of the same width. He then placed the flat plate, with center cone, on a convex stone. With a hammer, he gave the cone a quick whack which smashed the cone and left the small center hole filled-in. With hammer in hand, he then pounded the piece from the center out. This left the bamboo plate the shape of the stone under it. Now, he had a rough surfaced, shallow bamboo bowl.
At the next step the boy painted both sides of the bowl with a water-glue mixture. The indentations that were earlier squished onto the surface of the bamboo sticks now permitted the glue to soak completely through the bowl's bamboo content. This bowl was then set aside to dry, and the next one started.
When the glued platters had dried, they were carted to another home where a couple of workers used electric hand sanders to remove the rough edges of the bamboo. The initial sanding of each bowl took only a few minutes. Since this sanding station completed their task so much faster than it took to make the item, they did initial sanding on many different kinds of product.
The next step in the finishing process involved the arduous hand sanding. Here, girls took over. They clustered in small groups of four or five, sitting in a rough circle, on the floor. It looked like they were using small pieces of 250 grit paper. Using only their finger tips and the palm of the hand, they would work both sides of the bowl smooth. In endless chatter, time passed for them very quickly.
Now, it is not a wonder that the hand sanding was done by women. Since the Stone Age, women have worked in small groups raising the children and tending to the more rudimentary menial tasks. Through this process, women developed much higher social skills than those of their men. This made the days pass by more quickly. So it is today.
Near the sanding klatch was a man sitting on the floor. He is the quality control inspector. With a piece of white marker in his hand, he would quickly eye the initial sanding, make a few marks, and then pass it back to the women to be re-touched.
After a few cycles between the sanders and the inspector, the worked piece would be sent to its next station. This is where the smoothly sanded piece would receive either a clear coat of lacquer, or it would receive a stain, first. After the piece was dusted off, it received its first coating. The painting was done by hand.
With the coat of lacquer applied, and dried. The product would be taken to a new sanding group. This collection of workers was much larger than the first klatch of sanders. These sanders were both men and women. Kneeling, or sitting lotus style, on the floor, the sanders leaned over a large pond of water that was recessed into the floor. They used wet-and-dry sandpaper, again, only with their hands, to work the lacquered surface to smoothness. If the piece was colored, it would cycle through these sanders up to ten times. If the bamboo was to be clear coated, then it only passed their hands a couple of times. The finished product was very, very smooth.
Wet-and-dry sanding was the final stop for anything receiving clear coating. However, if the piece was stained, it was passed to one more station. At the next station two young men sat on the floor with electric auto buffers. Here they would apply some conventional car wax to the colored bamboo, and then, while holding it between their legs, they would buff the product to a high gloss shine.
The tour was quite a learning session. I was simultaneously both sad, and satisfied. I didn't feel good about the working conditions. I don't think I had any preconceived ideas as to what we would see. I suppose the workers could have been sitting on stools at work benches, but I don't believe that would have made handling the wood any more convenient. There was dust everywhere, so maybe some exhaust fans would have been good. On the other hand, because of the climate, everything was left as open as possible, so fans probably wouldn't have worked to keep things cleaner.
All of the workers took lunch breaks with their families. Children were spotted everywhere around the village. I am sure that so long as individual workers kept up with production expectations, they were able to take as many personal breaks as they wished. After all, each family was working for themselves, within a cooperative village spirit.
On the very positive side of the tour, I saw people openly content and visually happy about what they were doing. There were no clocks on the walls; no time cards to be punched. Every family member who could responsibly take on a small task was given one. Kids who were still too young played together, or were seen standing nearby their mom as she worked.
Each family was content in the knowledge that as long as production expectations were met, they were guaranteed a place at the village factory. Each worker was proud to contribute to their family and village betterment. The wages earned was something near, $100 per month. Y Yen specialized in bamboo wood products. Another village may have developed a specialty in some aspect of clothing. The cooperative village concept is how small towns survived.
When the tour ended we loaded into the van for lunch. Tuan treated, and we found ourselves packed around a table in the backroom of a café. Beer, all around, was the expected beverage. Four or five different dishes were served and chopsticks dueled for shares of the meal.
It was during lunch that Tim, with the assistance of Duong as translator, discussed his potential future role in the Village company. Tim's interest is to be able to buy into the ownership of the Bamboo Village factory. This way he could market without a middleman, keeping prices lower to the retailer, and share in any direct profits. Duong and Tuan chatted back and forth; stopping only long enough to brief Tim in English what was being said, and to offer him another opportunity to ask further questions.
It wasn't to be for two days later, that Tim and I were told by Duong the actual spirit of Tuan's desires from a partner, or owner. The Village is a collective of skilled families, each contributing to the same end, that being: the securing of a means to make a living.
A few of the families, we learned, sold some of the wares they made under their own family name. Production for this type of personal benefit was acceptable, so long as the primary factory orders were filled on time. Tuan told us there were many families which spent time, up to ten o'clock each night, to make bamboo ware for their personal marketing.
This family enterprise was a key unknown to Tim's consideration of bringing the entire village's production under one corporate roof. If Tim made a cash offer to Tuan, would the investment also bring control of the wares made by the few family companies? This would need to be discussed more in the future.
The family centered Asian mind appears to process much differently than the western one. Tim presented a suggested price he was willing to offer for purchase into the ownership of the company of villagers. Tuan expressed, in much length, that production had little need for extra money. What they made, paid for their raw materials, and left enough for each of the families. In fact, Tuan could not bring to immediate mind what Bamboo Village would do with extra cash, if it got some.
Center to Tuan's transfer of ownership was to have Tim bring more customer orders from Australia and America. Currently Tim is the only buyer of these goods from Australia, and there is only one man in the United States who has ever purchased a production order from Bamboo Village. Tuan's true desire is to be able to bring more work, to more families, in Y Yen. It would seem that if growth could be assured, then token money could secure ownership of the production process. Tuan's only personal desire is that he remains to be the one who assigns jobs when a new order is received. He wants to remain the general manager of Bamboo Village.
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