500-year-old pottery village produces cat mascots for Lunar New Year
Saturday, 21/01/2023 12:11 (GMT+7)
Artisans in the 500-year-old Thanh Ha pottery village in Quang Nam province have been busy molding cat mascots to meet the market demand for the Lunar New Year 2023, the Year of the Cat.
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| Artisans prepare clay and kilns to mold the cat mascots for the 2023 Lunar New Year market. |
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| Artisan Nguyen Sau, 63 years old, says the year-end is an opportunity for the village to sell pottery products, especially statues of Tet mascots. |
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| "This year, the number of orders for products has skyrocketed compared to the previous year which was affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, especially the cat mascots,” said Mr. Sau. |
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| The cat mascots are meticulously molded, ready to be baked into the finished product. Some establishments produce large-sized cat figurines for the purpose of displaying or selling. |
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| All stages of making the cat mascots are done completely manually. |
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| In order to get vivid clay cats, since mid-August, the artists had to take advantage of digging 2-3m deep alluvial clay on the Thu Bon River. After that, it is dried and then put in a mortar and pounded into a fine powder to make light gray clay. |
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| The cost depends on the size and sophistication of each mascot. Prices range from a few tens of thousands to millions of VND. |
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| Foreign tourists are excited to experience making pottery with their own hands. |
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| In addition to mascot products, the artisans have been busy making pottery pots and jars. |
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| Artisan Nguyen Thi Thuy, 57 years old, shared that these days her establishment has to increase working time compared to weekdays because the number of wholesale orders increases at the end of the year. |
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| The diverse products are very popular with tourists. This helps people earn more income. |
BTA (Photos: congthuong.vn)