A journey to find silver craftsman – Sapa Vietnam.

After receiving a phone call from a friend of us, We left Hanoi to find some craftsmen in Sapa, Vietnam.

As you might know, Sapa is one of the most famous destination in Vietnam and also the most crowed one. The long journey started from 10.00 p.m, after 8 hours by train, we reached Sapa the next morning. We stopped at Sapa O Chau for a short break before taking a ride with our local guider to find the silver craftsman.

Sapa O Chau is the first Social Company in Vietnam which is operated by ethnic minority people themselves. They are just so kind that after hearing our plan to seek for silver craftsmen in Vietnam, they offered their help. Our guider is actually the Director of Sapa O Chau and a H’mông person. With his help, we can communicate with local people because some of them cannot speak Vietnamese official language, especial in the remote area that we come. So basically we have 1 translator from H’mông to Vietnamese official language (Kinh language) and 1 translator from Vietnamese to English.

One special point about how H’mông people in Sapa making silver is the silver source. They use French coin to make jewelry. It started when the French army came to invade Vietnam, they discovered Sapa as a Vacation destination because of its cool weather and sometimes, snow in winter. So they brought sliver coin to Sapa and by the ingenious hands of local people they made jewelry from coins.

The craftsmen that we met learned how to make silver jewelry from his father. When he was young, he was so curious about his father work that he watched his father worked all days. The tools that he had been used was passed down by his father and he hoped that he could hand down family job to his son if his son had enough ability and interest. (I do think his son will continue his job because I can see the interest in his eyes maybe same as the father when he was young.).

The way he does all the rings, bracelets and earrings is extremely different from the normal way jewelry is manufactured.

Like father like son, His son also love to spend time to watch his father works. All the texture is engraved by hand with hammer and chisels. Each chisel is used to make different texture.

Each piece of jewelry takes him from 2 to 8 hours depending on level of sophistication.

This actually is a earring but they use it as decoration.

  Despite of long hours of working, they sell those products with almost same price from $2 -$3 per piece. They have no distribution channel, they only bring them to flee market to sell to trade to other products.

Although they are poor, they earn a really small amount of money per month, still they feel happy about their live, they smile, they think about their children, they work hard so that their children can go to school, that the future generations will have better live.

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