Fine-art agarwood works made in a remote village

(QNO) - Trung Phuoc village of Que Trung commune (Nong Son district, Quang Nam province) has been named “richers’ village of agarwood land”. Thanks to fine-art agarwood development, hundreds of residents have become richer. Now, they are looking for  oversea markets for their business.

New small scale factories have been established to create jobs for many families in Trung Phuoc (art) agarwood village.

We went through 80 km from Da Nang city to Trung Phươc art agarwood village under the summer scotching days. Many years ago, Trung Phươc was a poor village and hard to develop agricultural economy. Therefore, many local residents had to go to deep forests or high mountains to seek  agarwood with an expectation of finding an opportunity to change their life. Sometimes, they had to go to other remote zones or mountainous districts and provinces for months and faced many dangers to seek lucks.

The foot of an aquilaria tree is the best part to create beautiful art works.

Many local young men did not accept the poor life. They left their village to be apprenticed in fine-art agarwood trading firms in Khanh Hoa province. Some years later, they came back home and began making fine-art agarwood products themselves with their own ways and creation. Under the talented hands of Trung Phuoc villagers, many art works created from agarwood were introduced to the art market and sold throughout the country.

“Agarwood is the most important and precious part of an aquilaria tree. An old aquilaria gives a big agarwood part.  At present, raw agarwood is bought in Tien Phuoc district (Quang Nam province), Quang Bình and Thua Thien-Hue provinces. Most of fine-art agarwood products made in Trung Phuoc village are sold for interior decoration. According to Oriental people’s conception, agarwood will bring prosperity, happiness and  lucks to people,” said Mr Tran Dang, an old artisan of Trung Phuoc  village.
An  agarwood art work is a combination of many pieces of  agarwood which are engraved to become a beautiful products. At present, these  agarwood fine-art products are exported to big markets including China, Japan… with high profits. Some big and strange-shaped agarwood art works were sold at the price of millions of USD.

From a special agarwood creating method for aquilaria trees, many unique and strange agarwood works are made by artisans of Trung Phuoc village.

The social and economic life of Trung Phuoc village has been changed rapidly. Many local residents have been richer and richer just after ten years of working with agarwood. From some small firms at the beginning, at present, Trung Phuoc village has over 20 fine art agarwood production factories. Some factories employ dozens of year-round workers.

By DOAN HOANG