Conical hats

How inseparable it is? The hat has a conical shape, made out of straw and is kept on the head by a silk clothchin trap that keeps the hat from slipping out of the wearer's head.This traditional conical hat is particularly suitable for farmers insuch a tropical country as Vietnamwhere fierce sunshine and hard rains take place as often as girls’sulking. It can be used as a basin or a bowl to contain water when theyare thirsty, as a fan when they are hot, as a basket of a bunch ofvegetables. Romantically, young couples can veil their kisses behindthis traditional conical hat during their dates.

The legendbehind the hat is that, once upon a time, there was a very tall womanwho often wore a magical kind of hat made from four round leavesknitted together with bamboo. Wherever this woman appeared, cloudspassed and the weather became favorable. After teaching people to plantvegetables and trees for their living, she secretly passed and ascendedto the heavens. Yet, she was honored as the Goddess of Human and eversince, they have made hats in the shape of hers to protect themselvesfrom the sun and the rain.

Is making a conical hat difficult?If you look at a hat, it seems easily to make. Yet, it is not! "Conicalhat making requires painstaking precision", said 83 year-old Le ThiViet, the oldest master of Chuong village where thousands of conicalhats are produced every day. It is therefore considered the home of theconical hat in today’s Vietnam.

Sewing conical hats

Onlywatching craftsmen sewing conical hats inside brown tile-roofed housesin Chuong village can give you the real understanding. Looking at anold woman with crooked back, wrinkled face and shriveled hands, it’shard to imagine that she can hold her hands steady enough to do theneedlework, but she manages it skillfully. “My mother taught me to sewnon la when I was six years old. Now I’m 78. I could sew hats with my eyes closed,” Tam smiled.

A long history.According to historian Le Van Lan, Vietnamese girls and women have wornthe conical hat for a long time. The ancestor of today’s conical hatwas carved on Ngoc Lu kettledrum and Ao Thinh bronze jar 2,500 to 3000years ago. “Though no one knows exactly when the hat was born, for along time the conical hat has been considered the symbol of Vietnamesefarmers and Vietnamese people, in general,” says Lan.

The original lands of conical hat

Ifyou ask me where you can find the best conical hat, I would say thatdue to its popularity, each region in Vietnam has a well-known conicalhat - making village. The conical hat of the Tay group has adistinctively red color, whereas that in Thanh Hoa differs from otherswith a 20-hem frame. Hue's is thin and elegant, contrary to the thickones from Binh Dinh.

Chuongvillage produces 7,000 to 8,000 conical hats per day and about threemillion hats per year for both domestic use and export. “Our regularclients from the south, the centre or other northern provinces phone inorders so we can deliver immediately,” said Tuy, a 40-year oldcraftsman. “My latest contract is with a handicrafts export company, inwhich I proposed to export up to 5,000 conical hats to Japan.”

Itseems that every family in Chuong village is making conical hats.According to statistics, 80 percent of the village’s population earntheir living by conical hat production. The average income is aroundVND 700,000 to VND 1 million a month; the income is higher in summerthan in winter as it is harder to sew the hats in winter. In thevillage, you only pay VND 3,500- VND 10,000 for a hat but in Hanoi, itmight cost VND 30,000 to VND100, 000 depending on the quality.

Thissmall village which maintained its reputation for over three centuriesbelongs to Ha Tay Province and is only 40 kilometers on the west fromHanoi. So don’t hesitate to come and see a part of our cultural values,a symbol of our country!