China, Europe and the Netherlands: Opportunity Is Knocking at Our Doors

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A craftsman working on the metal mold used to press the Pra 
Kruang. Pras Kruang mold carvings are one of the most delicate 
and artistic of Thai handicrafts.
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Thai Pra Kruang
is one of Thai handicrafts’ best honed skills. As small 
as 1 centimeter or as large as 15 centimeters in size, 
they are all made with hair-breadth precision.
Thailand is a nation with a complex history and 
an extensive mix of ethnic groups, and as a result 
very inclusive; although more than 90% of the 
population is Buddhist, Brahmanism, Taoism, Is-
lam, Christianity are all accepted in Thailand, and 
a number of local magical arts still survive. This 
means that every day, customers ask for different 
combinations of materials, images and mantras; 
over a forty-year period, a craftsman’s guild pro-
duces hundreds of thousands of such combinations.
A wide variety of materials are used to produce 
Pra Kruang – mud, ash from burnt scriptures, 
herbs, ash, pollen, fiberglass, monks’ ashes, sacred 
relics, shell, rubber, gold and silver, mantra tubes 
(a kind of metal tube on which a mantra is written), 
or even ground-down precious ancient Pra Kruang. 
Over the last 20 years, a large number of metallic 
Pra Kruang have appeared, and these now make up 
around half of the total. Most are made of gold, sil-
ver, copper, five-metal alloys, nine-metal alloys or 
mineral ore alloys.
At the guild, I saw an absolute beauty – a copper 
four-faced Buddha no more than a centimeter tall. 
Its precise proportions, elegant posture, smiling 
face, its eight arms each bearing a different musical 
instrument, all made it beautiful. But its clearly 
legible inscriptions that even covered the base are 
what made it an amazing piece of handicraft!
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By the time the Mekong River enters Vietnamese 
territory, its journey towards the sea is almost at an 
end. As a result, Mekong River culture also seems 
to come to a grand conclusion here, with a culture 
that combines and interprets the various cultural 
elements the great river has nurtured on its journey 
from China. 
Vietnam is famed for its wooden carvings, and 
the puppet which Hongkuang gave me is hand-
carved by a master craftsman. They are more will-
ing to spend the time and energy on high-quality 
wood hand-carvings of Guanyin, Lohan, Buddha, 
people, animals and the like. The carving style is 
Vietnamese Wooden 
Carvings
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wild and uninhibited, but also exquisitely intricate. 
You can buy polished lacquer flower vases and jew-
elry boxes in Hanoi and Saigon crafts shops, their 
surfaces inlaid with shell patterns of landscapes, 
flora and fauna, or even people.
There is a famous city in central Vietnam called 
Da Nang, a major U.S. base during the Vietnam 
War. Further back in time, however, it also formed 
part of the Kingdom of Champa, and was the site 
of a city built in the same style as Angkor Wat, 
but much smaller in scale. Champa’s destruction 
led to its assimilation into Vietnam, and only the 
Cham people now remain, and thrive here. Cham-
pa was mainly a Hindu nation, and the remains of 
A water puppet show in the Vietnamese capital, Hanoi
A Vietnamese stone carver ,  now in his 80s has carved stone his entire life
Characters in a Vietnamese water puppet show
its typical Indian style, mythological creatures and 
buildings can still be seen in places like the Da Nang 
Museum of Cham Sculpture.
Guided by my Vietnamese friends and Chinese 
students studying there, I visited the city’s largest 
carving village, and its oldest craftsmen. Once again, 
there was a wonderful collision of cultures here: 
their work incorporated a strange diversity, blend-
ing Chinese-style vases, Buddha, dragons and phoe-
nixes, and the typical Champa fusion of Indian and 
Cambodian styles into a variety of statues. The stone 
material is the green and yellow jades so popular in 
Chinese culture, as well as the common bluestone 
mostly used by the Champa. 
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This is the charm of Mekong River handicrafts. I have been to  
these countries several times already, but I feel the urge to return 
there, because  the masterpieces local craftsmen create  are a major 
draw which I find hard to resist. This is because they all too clearly 
highlight a very simple fact: Mekong River Basin culture is a flowing, 
live culture, and the blended cultural scenes of the nations which lie 
on the banks of this mighty river blend to form a similar yet distinc-
tive culture which spans the entire region.
Traditional Vietnamese hand-made lanterns
Polar bears are running out of safe places.
Go to www.ifaw.org to learn more.
Can you imagine…
the Arctic without polar bears?
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