Our artisan friends

Accompanied by Khoa, our guide and interpreter, we are visiting families in the North West of Hanoi, in search of wicker objects. Adults are bashful and do not like having their picture being taken, however children keep asking us to take a selfie with them.

It is a tradition in Vietnam: before taking us to their workshop, they welcome us warmly with tea and fruits.

Maï had insisted on taking me to the bottom of her garden to show me the little stream crossing it.

On our return from a visit with several families in the village of Chuong My in the North of Hanoi, we are struck by children leaving a school. They all wanted to appear on the photo. Magical!

With our interpreter in Hoi An, where we went to visit the beautiful ethical object shop “One day in HoiAn”.

The Tran family received us very warmly in their home; they made us participate in the ancestors’ ceremony and then took us to visit their village to meet artisans in the neighbourhoods of Hue.

I study with interest a detail of the artisanal manufacturing process.

The workshops are often rooms at the back of houses where the family settles in for the day, 4 or 5 of them working together. This room also serves as a warehouse to store their week’s work.

Hmmm, can we transform a chicken cage into a pendant light?

Handbags ready to go to the cooperative that collects them to fumigate them, ready for export.

I’m tempted by one of these baskets… Shall I or shan’t I?

Baskets, more baskets!

They work hard, but they play hard too!

And yes! It may end up suspended in a Brussels, Parisian, or London interior.