Tran Van Xuan, a 45-year old craftsman, has a deep tan and a bony face. With his head covered with a large-rimmed hat. He sits on a high chair while carefully polishing the gentle eyes of a marble statute of Bodhisattva with a soft cloth. Next week, the statue, which Xuan has been working on since early this year, will be sold to a pagoda in Hue city.

“Carving statues and products from marble has been the main trade for people from this village for nearly 400 years,” says Xuan, who started sculpting when he was just eight years old. “Rock is my life.” Tran Van Xuat, a 55 year old sculptor and shop-owner, says that under the reign of King Tu Duc (1848-1883), many skilled craftsmen from the village were invited to the royal court in Hue to carve statues and bas-relief works for the palaces and mausoleums.

There is a temple dedicated to the founders of “The Marble Fine Arts” by the Marble Mountains. Even villagers that aren’t sculptors will give thanks to their ancestors here on the sixth day of the first lunar month every year as sculpting put this town on the map and helped it flourish. In the past, when the trade first appeared in the village, there were less than a dozen households engaged in it while other households lived off fishing or agricultural.

The trade now brings hundreds of billions of Vietnamese dong into the local economy. People like Xuat are living in a golden era of unprecedented wealth. Xuat used to live in a straw-roofed house, now he has a three storey house-cum-workshop and employs 20 people. Many of these workers are locals who would not be able to find other work after leaving high school or serving in the army.

The Marble Mountains, which are made out of marble and limestone, and are technically merely hills or crags, were named by Emperor Minh Mang of the Nguyen Dynasty on his visit in 1825. He named the cluster of five hills after the five elements – Thuy Son (water), Moc Son (wood), Kim Son (metal), Tho Son (soil) and Hoa Son (fire).

Previously, materials used to make sculptures were exploited at the site. The marble was known for its excellent quality. However, overexploitation of the rock led to a ban being imposed several years ago so now materials are transported from quarries in Quang Nam province and beyond. Initially, the village’s products were simple items made for the local community – rice mortars, tombstones or small animal objects for shrines, pagodas and temples.

Now products are created with a broader market in mind. Products with both traditional and modern motifs made here are being shipped across the globe. In the past, the carving was passed down from older generations to young apprentices in their family. Now craftsmen run vocational training courses while younger craftspeople attend fine art college or university in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City before returning to the fold.

“It is a demanding job. You need patience, good health and creativity. You have to know clearly what you are carving and love it. If not, the work is only a statue without any value,” says Xuat. Showing off his calloused hands, Xuat says that he has been doing the work for 40 years, and he still relishes it. “I am happy whenever I complete a product,” he says.

When starting a sculpture, firstly, a craftsperson will imagine what he or she will do with the figure of the rock before making sketches on paper. After that the chiselling begins. “You must be careful with each and every millimetre – the whole piece can be spoilt with a single mistake,” Xuat says. Although sculpting has profited villagers, it has an environmental impact that also effects the health of the workers.

As hundreds of tonnes of rock are broken and chiselled, the air is filled with a thick dust. Local craftspeople also believe as much as 20-25 per cent of them are hard of hearing. Acid is also used to clean most marble products. Waste water mixed with acid is discharged into the local sewage system which seeps out across village roads. As a result, underground water sources are badly contaminated and the village still uses this very water.

Local authorities have applied several measures to curb environmental impact but they are mostly ineffective according to the local workforce. Most crarftworkers wear thick gloves and face masks all day to keep the dust out and their hands free of acid. Yet they still complain of respiratory and skin problems. Here at Hoa Hai, this how people live, in fact for better or for worse, it’s the only way to live.

VNN/Time-out