Tang Tien Rattan and Bamboo Village

A bamboo basket looks very simple. Making one means choosing the bamboo, drying it, smoking it, splitting it into strips and checking every strip, then weaving with hands that learned the trade in childhood. In Tăng Tiến this work can be seen as it really happens, not as a show.

The village of Tăng Tiến was once a commune and then a ward of the same name. It was in Việt Yên, in Bắc Giang. The Nếnh ward portal records that on July 1, 2025, the area was merged into Nếnh ward, in Bắc Ninh Province. The craft village lies about 7 kilometers west of the old city of Bắc Giang, right beside Highway 1A.

Local tourism sources say that rattan and bamboo weaving here is more than 300 years old, dating from around the Later Lê period. That date comes from those tourism sources alone. No original historical document confirms it.

In earlier times, weaving was a side job beside farming. Every household knew how to weave, and made baskets to use at home or to sell at the local market. After a rattan and bamboo cooperative was set up, many households turned to weaving as their main work. A side job became the main living of the whole commune, a notable change in the village's economic history.

Two hamlets, Phúc Long and Phúc Tằng, are the best known for the craft. The Bắc Giang tourism portal describes Phúc Tằng as the core of the craft. The traditional materials are the dùng plant, bamboo and rattan. Today dùng is the main one, according to the tourism sources. It has straight sections, fine strips and a tough, supple fiber, which suit small, carefully made pieces that must last.

The work begins with choosing the material, then cutting the bamboo, splitting it into strips, and smoking or drying them. Next comes weaving, and last the finishing of the design. The news site VietnamPlus calls the products of Tăng Tiến intricate and eye-catching, thanks to long-practiced handwork. This is not industrial plastic ware. Each basket and each blind carries the marks of the maker's hands.

The products fall into several groups. The traditional group has baskets, colanders, sieves, large round baskets, flat trays and woven bins for storing grain. A second group covers household goods and export handicrafts. It includes blinds, trays, vases, tables and chairs, bags, mats and pillows. It also includes goods made from mành tăm, blinds woven from fine bamboo slivers. The Bắc Giang tourism page describes how such a blind is made. Bamboo is split into slivers about 30 to 40 centimeters long and dried. The slivers are then dyed, to give color and to protect them from termites and rot, and woven into the blind. The sliver blinds were once recorded as an important export line for the village.

In a world of plastic goods and machines, there are still people who sit and weave strip by strip, day after day. It is not for lack of other choices. It is the craft of earlier generations, the identity of a community, and a real livelihood for hundreds of households in the area.