Chau Khe jewelry village is in Thuc Khang commune, Cam Binh district, Hai Duong province. Chau Khe has its land area of 78.5 hectares, of which only 63 hectares are used for cultivation. Its population growth is rather low due to the fact that some craftsmen have moved to other regions (e.g. Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City,...).
According to the figures registered in the Village Convention and Land regulation book, as well as the statistics of the commune's People's Committee, the population of Chau Khe comprised 600 persons in 1900, more than 800 people with 17 households in 1983. Thus, the average per capita land area is only about 2 sao (1 sao = 360 m2). Having soon acknowledged the importance of non-farming activities, people in Chau Khe village are quite successful in gradually improving their living standard. And it is just jewelry that has made the village better-off in the middle of Red River Delta, which is endowed with fertile land, but also subject to various natural calamities, such as storms, floods, dykes breaking, poor harvests and hunger.
Chau Khe has been famous with jewelry and its production of votive papers was also well known before. Overtime, first from silver casting and then silver processing, the Chau Khe craftsmen have gradually come to jewelry (in the past, jewels were made mainly from gold and silver).
In the early XIX century, under the Nguyen dynasty, the profession of coining silver in bars was moved to the capital of Hue (Thuan Hoa province). Meanwhile, most of Chau Khe workmen still lived in Thang Long (now Hanoi) engaged in making jewels. They concentrated in a professional group (guild) and set up Hang Bac street. Presently, in Hang Bac street there are also Dinh Cong goldsmiths and Dong Xam silversmiths (from Thai Binh province), but in the majority are Chau Khe silver-goldsmiths. They are engaged in producing, doing business with silver and even exchanging the silver in bars for piece silver as material. In the early years of XX century, this street still bore the French name: Rue des Changeurs (i.e. the street of exchanging silver).
Nowadays, as passing Hang Bac street in Hanoi you should know some addresses like the number 58 (former silver coining house), number 42 (Ha - Lower communal house) former Ty Quan (representative office of the Court) and number 50 (former Thuong - Upper communal house) that bought silver in bars. There were so many Chau Khe people working here that there were 300 units of poll tax (in the late XIX century). They bought Hoi Mieu temple of Tam Lam shoemaker guild (or Hai Tuong guild) in addition to 2 other temples. Those were the places for gathering and worshiping their ancestor.
Source: saigontouristjapan
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