Chapter 1:
The unusual potter
Sticking
to a strict macrobiotic diet, waking up at 5 a.m. every day for morning
exercise, working 15 hours per day, most people think of Ly Ngoc Minh as an
energetic and lively person.
Born
in 1950, Minh is the captain and the soul of Minh Long, the biggest ceramics
and porcelain brand in Southeast Asia that employs 3,000 people at its factory
in Vietnam’s southern province of Binh Duong.
Asked
how they feel about their boss, the staff say they admire and adore him, but
they're also afraid of “Uncle Minh”.
“Uncle
Minh” is a man with an extreme love for clay, a kind of passion that is not
easy to understand and cannot be explained in words. Ever since he was a boy,
Minh has been playing with the earthy material. For him, clay is like a human
being: each piece is individual with its own characteristics and biographies.
Holding a piece of clay in his hands, Minh can tell almost immediately what
type of clay it is, its structure, where it comes from and how it should be
baked.
Minh
was born into a poor family. He lost his father as a child and had no chance of
attending secondary school.
As
a boy, he had to help his mother make ceramics and take them to the market.
That boy grew up into a young man who haunted himself with the question: “Why
shouldn’t I make the most beautiful and quality ceramic products in the world
that can be used by every Vietnamese family?” To find the answer, he traveled
across the country, visiting villages where locals held tight to their
long-standing traditions of making pottery, and spent days in libraries going
through every page that had information about the art of ceramics in Vietnam.
His hard work paid off, and he now produces some of the most exquisite
Vietnamese pottery to be found.
The
journey also took Minh on a long trip to more than 50 countries, from China to
Japan and across Europe, setting foot in age-old pottery workshops to learn
their skills, experience and knowledge.
Impressed
by German products, which he praises as the world’s most best, Minh decided to
apply German techniques to his own ceramics and porcelain.
In
1996, he spent more than $1 million building a laboratory, the most modern and
well-equipped in Vietnam and the region at the time, just to study clay. Any
tableware produced by the Minh Long factory has to go through hundreds of tests
in this lab, where Minh can be found every day searching for a better product
that can better the world's top brands. Minh knows that being gifted is not
enough, and to succeed he needs to test his own knowledge and skills.
This
lab is where many firsts in the ceramics industry, not only in Vietnam, but in
the world, have taken place. Minh Long has succeeded in producing ceramics
using a one-time baking technique, something that several workshops in Europe
are still struggling to master.
Dietmar
Preibinger, business director of German ceramics producer Sama Maschinenbau,
has expressed his admiration for Minh for being able to master this unique
technique, which bakes ceramics at 1,380 degrees Celsius.
Minh
is at his happiest when he can bring to life a product that no one else has
ever made or even thought of, and when he can create quality products for
Vietnamese consumers. For him, the best products are elegant and good quality
with affordable prices.
The
name Minh Long means “eternal quintessence”. Those two words carry significant
meaning, Minh explained, saying that without constant care and learning, one
can never have a job for life.
This
is also the reason he created the motto “Four nos and four bes” for his
company: no boundaries, no time limits, no gender, no age; be cultured, be
artistic, be stylish, be passionate.
Chapter 2:
From the APEC Gala Dinner in 2006
Minh
was one of many guests at the gala dinner that served economic leaders in Hanoi
in 2006, the first time Vietnam hosted the APEC Summit.
Ever
since that moment, he has nurtured the dream of preparing a set of tableware of
international stature for such a gala dinner.
He
read everything he could to learn about the concept of a feast of international
standards and consulted fellow experts in the field.
His
moment arrived in 2014 when he read a newspaper article about a set of
dinnerware that was used for the APEC gala dinner China. With his experience,
Minh knew it was something that his company could do.
“Porcelain
is a wonderful messenger when it comes to promoting the tradition and culture
of a country. This has been proven through a long journey in human history. If
Vietnam ever hosts APEC again, I have to take that chance,” he thought.
That
thought marked the first step of a journey that the boss of Minh Long and his
staff have been on for the past two years.
“I
didn't know if Minh Long would get the contract to prepare the gala dinner when
APEC returned to Vietnam, but at that moment, I could even imagine what the
tableware would look like in my head. I just showed my staff how to design,
paint and even make the molds for my dream products.”
And
just like that, around 30 - 40 members of Minh Long joined a team to create a
set of porcelain which was destined for APEC.
He
pictured how the whole set would look at the banquet: the rectangle trays, the
number of plates, the shape of the bowls for the soups and salads, the
lotus-shaped, gold-plated tea cup lids.
All
the designs for this set should be different from any products that Minh Long
has ever produced before, Minh told himself.
“We
couldn’t tell you how many headaches we had. A team of more than 30 people did
everything they could to get this project done. It took us more than six months
to come up with the final design ideas,” he said, adding that just one detail
like the lotus design was already challenging enough, even for the most patient
artists.
The
observant will notice that the lotus flower design on Minh Long’s porcelain is
completely different from any of his other products.
For
decades, Minh collected lotus flower designs he found in Europe and Asia, and
bought books and furniture patterns featuring paintings of the flower, but it
wasn't until he took a close look at the genuine Vietnamese lotus flower in a
pond that he realized that it was the true lotus he had been looking for.
s
research into Vietnamese lotus flowers started from that moment. He looked for
information on the internet and went through old documents to see how people
had painted lotus flowers in the past, with a special focus on the work of
Vietnamese author Tran Dinh Son in the Imperial City of Hue, Vietnam’s former
capital.
He
then worked with artists to come up with a unique design for the lotus flower,
which resulted in thousands of different designs being tested.
What
makes Minh Long’s design special is a combination of East and West, thanks to a
Swiss artist.
“I
hired a Swiss artist because I wanted my lotus design to strike both Easterners
and Westerners.”
Minh
fell in love with the artist's work because the lotus flowers she painted had
thick but regular petals that somehow made them look warm and tender at the
same time.
Using
her paintings, Minh and his designers created the unique design for Minh Long.
That design has been painted, printed, sculptured and carved onto different
products and is adored by both Asian and Western customers.
The
work on other designs such as the birds, temples, pagodas and Vietnamese women
was no less tough and took Minh’s team two years to complete. Minh repeatedly
made tiny alterations to the designs until everyone in the company agreed they
were perfect.
But
the APEC journey did not simply end there. The process of finding the right
materials, testing and producing the final products lasted for months after
that, and hundreds of people were called in for the main project of creating
just one set of tableware - the one for the APEC gala dinner.
Dinnerware
is not only for dining. In the beginning, humans did not even have plates,
bowls or spoons. Dining became a culture and an art. As Nguyen Tuan, a famous
Vietnamese writer, once said: “a good meal means good food, good surroundings
and good company.”
Chapter 3:
Quintessence is from the Earth
For
Ly Ngoc Minh: “Everything that appears in this life is already the quintessence
of nature, and so is earth. What we have to do is use our knowledge, skills and
efforts to turn earth into gems.”
The
tableware set that Minh Long has created for the APEC gala dinner is made from
a mixture of soils from different parts of the world.
“40
percent of this mixture is kaolin clay from across Vietnam. The rest of it is
from New Zealand, India, Canada, the U.S., Russia, South Korea, Germany, France
and the Middle East,” Minh shared.
The quest for soil of the boss of Minh Long.
After
40 years of playing with soil, Minh knows that this ‘skin of the earth’ has its
own soul. Each type of soil is a different individual, a unique child of Mother
Nature, and the ones that can be used to create ceramics and porcelain should
be among the finest products of nature: rare earth elements, kaolin, felspat,
quartz and clay.
And
as a rule of nature, it is impossible to find all these types of soil in one
place. That is why the process of finding the right materials for Minh Long's
porcelain is like “panning for gold”.
For
Minh Long's products, the materials must be pure enough to withstand the
extreme heat to come out shining and flawless.
Minh
remembers the time when he got stuck in a forest in Laos under heavy rain after
he had driven more than 2,700 km (1,670 miles) to look for soil, and another
time when he spent almost half a day walking through the jungle in Vietnam’s
northern province of Vinh Phuc. Flashbacks of traveling hundreds of meters
underground to explore a mine in Shanghai and one in New Zealand also stay with
him.
Minh
had to go on the quest himself because no one else knew what Minh Long really
needed, and the entire journey would have been wasted.
But
sometimes, he did send workers around the mine to pick up lumps of soil before
showing them how to extract exactly what he needed to prepare the tableware for
the big party.
The
criteria at Minh Long was always strict, but Minh decided to bring the
definition of “strict” to a new level for the APEC gala dinner.
After
arriving at the door of Minh Long, each piece of soil had to go through a
number of tests and only the purest was selected.
“It
has to be pure from the very beginning to prevent any stains, even tiny ones.
There are chemical substances that can affect the quality of the final product
but we cannot see them, so these tests are extremely necessary.”
“Only
the best workers were chosen for this project, and they all know how much
effort they need to put into working the clay. Even bakers don't take that much
care with their cakes,” Minh said.
The
modern equipment and manual labor needed to produce the final product is the
reason for the high cost. Everything comes at a price, and turning soil into
something much more is not an exception.
If
he sees anyone drop a piece of material at the factory, Minh tells them to pick
it up immediately because that tiny piece had cost “blood, sweat and tears”.
“Some
people hoard gold, but I keep soil because there are some types of soil that
are hard to find so we have to stash them for future use.”
Chapter 4:
Delicacy is from man
“Materials
first, baking second, shaping third and decorating last” is the principle of
making ceramics and porcelain. Baking, shaping and decorating are jobs that
require both knowledge and clever hands.
Baking
is a crucial step in which the temperate, pressure and timing must be
accurately adjusted, and the environment around the kiln needs to be monitored.
Even
the most experienced potters with a modern kiln cannot take this step lightly.
Sometimes, the humidity in the air can affect the quality of the products. The
quality can also be ruined if even a small piece of paper falls into the kiln
or if the gold-plated products are not put into the kiln at the right time.
Every
finished product has to go through at least 34 different stages, including
designs on computer, paper, print and paint. Designers and artists have to
decide which designs should be printed on the porcelain and which should be
painted by hand.
Minh
believes that a delicate handmade touch is reflected in his products.
For
the tableware being used for the gala dinner, each color comes from a different
baking process.
Despite
the fact the tableware features gold-plated items using 24k gold produced by
Germany’s Heraeus, which has more than 260 years of experience, its most valued
aspect is the craft itself.
Many
people spend serious money to cast a solid gold bowl, but plating gold on
porcelain is a technique that only a few workshops can master.
“I
was over the moon to see the first finished products. What I felt at that
moment could be compared to the feeling of a mother who has gone through pain
to give birth to a child and raised that child to become a beautiful person.”
For
the most experienced potter in Vietnam, opening the kiln to touch a perfect
product is his greatest happiness.
Chapter 5:
The beauty of light
Standing
in front of the dinnerware set crafted specially for APEC, Minh could not hide
his excitement and enthusiasm, just like a little boy. “Round plates and bowls
are placed on a rectangle tray following traditional Vietnamese culture, which
comes from the old belief that the sky is round and the Earth is square,” he
said.
Minh
did his best to pull out all the stops for this year's gala dinner.
Minh
Long’s artisans have used the finest glazes to turn their porcelain into gems,
making them as smooth as silk and elegant from all angles. What is more
important is that they are practical.
The
soup tureen has two layers of porcelain to trap the heat, and is paired with a
ladle with a handle shaped like a peacock’s tail.
The
spice and sauce sets are designed in Western and Asian styles to help diners
make their choices more easily.
The
set for tea and coffee has just the same level of delicacy, with cups for
espressos, double espressos, cappuccinos and tea, while the wine glasses are
light and thin.
Adorned
with intricate patterns, the ice cream bowls are made from porcelain but are
much thinner and lighter than crystal.
The
sauce spoon featuring a dragon’s head with a gemstone in its mouth is a
highlight of Minh Long’s tableware for APEC, one that diners will struggle to
keep their eyes off.
The
rest of the set blends together in perfect harmony.
Cobalt
and lime have been chosen as the two main colors for the APEC banquet.
Yellow
is a royal color, while lime is a classic color used in the courts of both
Asian and European countries. In the world of porcelain, cobalt is the most
beautiful, most premium, but also the most challenging.
And
cobalt is at its best when it is accompanied by a vivid shade of lime.
Together, they give the product a simple and refined elegance without being
over the top.
“Sometimes,
a premium product is just one stitch or brush stroke away from something that's
run of the mill. If we are standing next to porcelain giants, we have to stand
out to the rest of the world,” Minh said.
“When
we were crafting the dinnerware for APEC, the number of the pieces we needed to
produce had me worried, sad, happy and excited at the same time. Sometimes my
happiness quickly turned to disappointment when I found a flaw.”
Aside
from preparing for the gala dinner, Minh Long has also produced unique
gold-plated porcelain cups with lotus flower patterns for Vietnamese leaders to
present their APEC visitors as gifts. They feature three dragons, representing
the north, center and south of Vietnam, holding a bowl. This design has never
appeared before, and features the mouth and wings of a phoenix, because “only
wings can help us to fly”.
“These
cups are for APEC economic leaders only," Minh said.
APEC
2017 is an important diplomatic event of Vietnam this year, which gathers
leaders from 21 economies. Minh and his team have spent two years so that:
“Vietnam can give its visitors a gift that carries the culture, history, skills
and knowledge of the Vietnamese people. These products are beautiful and carry
the Vietnamese spirit inside them,” said Minh.
For
this artisan, Vietnamese people are “children of the dragon and grandchildren
of the fairy”, and that story should be reflected by art to show the rest of
the world what Vietnamese people are capable of.
“Vietnam
now has the opportunity to flourish, and we should all be proud of that.
Anything can happen if we put our hearts and souls into what we do. I had no
idea if the authorities would allow my company to be part of APEC,” shared the
veteran potter, the grandfather of five kids.
“I
have no intention of making up a thrilling story to attract attention. The
story of making ceramics is simple.”
By VNE