All is not what it seems at Van Phuc Silk Village

Visitors to Van Phuc Silk Village who want to enjoy the peaceful environment of a craft village and the chance to buy an authentic piece of silk might be disappointed.

A craft village ruined by market mechanism? 

Many Van Phuc villagers have become rich from silk. Nguyen Van Sinh, chairman of the Van Phuc Craft Village Association, says  over 1,000 out of 1,200 families in the village are involved in the silk trade. Some 600 of them have silk weaving enterprises, with several having nearly 20 power-looms each. 

Thanks to this traditional trade, more than 60 percent of workers in the village are employed and have stable income of more than 1 million dong per month. Some large-scale silk traders are also established. 

However, the back side of the market mechanism is that some traders cheat customers by selling Chinese or substandard silk products in the name of Van Phuc. 

The village was very crowded during a Saturday. However, many people left Van Phuc empty handed.  

Thanh, a woman from Yen Phu ward, Tay Ho district, told Tien Phong’s reporter: “Several years ago, I could buy several pieces of silk whenever I went to Van Phuc. Today I buy nothing because I cannot distinguish between authentic Van Phuc silk and fake silk”. 

“It is wrong that a traditional silk village sells cheap origin silk that I can buy at cloth stalls in other markets in Hanoi like Dong Xuan, Ninh Hiep and Hom at 20,000 to 30,000 dong a meter. Here, the same cheap silk is priced at 2-3 times higher,” she added. 

Khanh, a visitor from the central city of Da Nang, was very happy to buy a lot of silk products as gifts for his family. However, an experienced customer said most of these things are Chinese cloth. 

A Tien Phong’s reporter spent half a day visiting all the big shops in the village to ask for the shopping experience and she was told to visit big and prestigious ones to buy silk. Van Phuc silk is only in the form of cloth, not ready made clothes.  

Silk association’s role limited 

Sinh, chairman of the Van Phuc Craft Village Association, admitted that some shops in Van Phuc sell silk of unclear origins. He said the village has 150 silk shops but up to 80 percent are hired by non locals. The association can only try to persuade them, rather than intervene in their business.

Many customers don’t insist on buying true Van Phuc silk, but anything good and cheap, Sinh said. 

Sinh also said that though he is a senior silk weaver, it is also difficult for him to distinguish between Van Phuc silk and faked silk. 

The association planed to weave “Van Phuc silk” words on cloths produced by over 400 members. However, Sinh said that this is a future project because the association is awaiting for local agency assistance. 

The association also calls for silk traders in Van Phuc to only sell Van Phuc silk to resume local village values but it seems very difficult. 

According to the Van Phuc Craft Village Association, the village attracts from 3,500 to 5,000 visitors a day and the ratio of local and foreign visitors is 50-50. Up to 65-70 percent of its products are sold on the spot. 

Source: VietNamNet/Tien Phong