About 7km away from Thu Dau Mot city hub in the North, Tuong Binh Hiep is the traditional lacquer village being developed and maintained over generations. Tuong Binh Hiep’s lacquer works have long become famous throughout the country in quality and sophistication imbued with the East Asian characters.

In the past, Tuong Binh Hiep was Binh An district’s small village producing ancient pictures and was the place receiving residents with clever hands from the North and Central. The combination turned the village into hub of lacquer picture. Thu land people realized the village’s advantages and made up it into a traditional craft village.

The gold era of Tuong Binh Hiep lacquer village was in the period of 1980-1990 with establishment of lacquer cooperatives of more than 160 members. Accordingly, 744 households lived mainly on producing lacquer works. The development created jobs for more than 1,500 laborers at that time.

Possibly speaking, two artists including Thai Van Ngon and Ngo Tu Sam were considered as typical representatives of Tuong Binh Hiep lacquer village. The subsequent generations included Tran Van Khiem born in 1932. He was the first person producing big size sole lacquer vases with the height of more than 2 meters.

During his research process, Tran Van Khiem invented successfully in replacing cotton to make up main part for lacquer works. This was a breakthrough helping enrich Binh Duong’s traditional lacquer collections. "The products have such high quality due to the thick resin extracted from the cay son (rhus succedanea) which has been used by generations of local artisans, " said Tran Van Khiem who has over 50 years of experience in the craft. Khiem who runs a family concern, is among many artists in Tuong Binh Hiep who have stuck to resin from the Phu Tho trees which is famed for lacquer that gleams for 30-40 years. The 73-year-old said he learnt the craft as a teenager from a veteran artist in the village.

According to VietKings (Kyluc.vn)