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Vietnam
Cultured pearls in Vietnam
by Elisabeth Strack, 2006
The Socialistic Republic of Vietnam stretches over a total
length of 1,600 kilometers along the eastern coast of Lower India and borders on
the South China Sea,
the northern part of which is named the Gulf of Tongking. In the north, the
country is only 600 kilometers wide and borders on China, while on the western
border are Laos and Cambodia, which Vietnam had occupied during the nineteen
seventies.
Vietnam has been dominated by China since the first century BC. The country only started blossoming during the Li dynasty, which established itself around 1000 AD. 900 years of independence followed, accompanied by conquests and struggles for power. France started to extend its influence in Indo-China under the Emperor Napoleon III, and it established itself as a colonial power. After World War II and the departure of the Japanese who had occupied the French colonial territory, the French were unable to hold on to their position during the so-called Indochina War.
The country was divided into a northern and southern zone during the Indo-China Conference in Geneva, the l7th degree of latitude being the dividing line. Rising pressure from the Vietcong, the people’s liberation front in South Vietnam, led in 1962 to the dispatch of military advisors from the United States to Saigon, and finally led to the second Indo-China War, which was to enter history as the unfortunate Vietnamese War. South Vietnam capitulated after the departure of year. the Americans, when troops from North Vietnam entered the country in April 1975. Ho Chi Minh was still president of North Vietnam and leader of the Vietnamese communists at the time.
The country has since been united as the “Socialistic Republic of Vietnam”, and is still dominated by the Communist Party. During the nineteen eighties, the disastrous economic situation led to a reform program, which brought a certain degree of liberalization. New investment laws allowed the transfer of capital and technical know-how from abroad, but the government continued to deny its people basic democratic rights.
It seems, however, that the times of the Cold War are finally over. A leading wholesaler from Hong Kong opened an exclusive jewelry store in Ho Chi Minh City in 1996, where he also sells jewelry with South Sea cultured pearls to the newly developing class of wealthy Vietnamese. This leads to the conclusion that Vietnamese cultured pearls might also one day find a market in their own country.
Akoya Cultured Pearls
The
Bay of Halong in the Gulf of Tongking was a famous site for natural pearls for
many centuries. The area had a similar importance to Hepu and Beihai in China.
The natural pearls came from different species of Pinctada, and also from
Pinctada maxima. Moreover, the rare Melo pearls also come from the coasts of
Vietnam.
The first attempts at the production of Akoya cultured pearls go back to the nineteen sixties and they were stopped during the Vietnamese War. The first Japanese, Fujiani Iwaki from the Ogawa Company, came to Vietnam in 1990 when he already had 35 years of experience on his own pearl farm in Japan. He started in March 1991 on the island of Nhieu Tan were harvested eight months later. In late 1996, he established a second farm on Phu Quoc Island and was already planning to seed 2 million mollusks.
In the summer of 1999, a total of 20 companies had set up business along the coast from the Chinese border down to Nha Trang in the southeast. Several hundred local workers were employed. The grafters still came from Japan, but a number of Vietnamese technicians have been trained. They are encouraged to have their own farms later. The Vietnamese government issues lito foreigners only under the condition that knowledge is passed on to the inhabitants of the country.
The farms belong both to Vietnamese and to foreign companies and also to joint ventures. The two Japanese companies, Oriental Pearl Co. Ltd. and Taiheiyo Shinju Co. Ltd. from Kobe, together own four farms; the first farm was founded in 1992. Both companies presented cultured pearls from Vietnam in sizes of 2 mm to 6 mm at the large jewelry fairs in 1999. Production was scheduled to exceed 1,000 kilograms in 2001. One farm belongs to the Australian Atlas Pacific Company and one belongs to a company from Hong Kong.
The farms use Pinctada chemnitzii, which corresponds with the Chinese pearl mollusc, and they also use Ptena penguin. The latter is used for the production of blister pearls (“Mabe pearls”). Pincta”: maxima is also found in the Gulf of Tongking, but the production of South Sea pearls has probably only seen pilot projects so far. Most farms concentrate on the production of Akoya cultured pearls with Pinctada chemnitzii, which have come mainly from hatchery stations since 2001.
At the beginning of the new millennium, there were general expectations that considerable quantities of Vietnamese Akoya cultured pearls would soon be on the market. They were largely expected to have a better nacre thickness than Akoya cultured pearls from both Japan and China because of good water conditions and longer growth periods. The harvests are expected to include yellow and golden pearls. There is nearly no pollution. Labor costs and general costs are low and the local people are hard working. The future looks promising and Vietnam might one day come before Japan because it can offer pearls of better quality at lower prices.
Freshwater Cultured Pearls
Freshwater pearls from the lakes and rivers of northern Vietnam rose to prominence from time to time over the centuries. Vietnam has a similarly large number and identical species of freshwater mussels as China. This means that Hyriopsis cumingii (Lea, 1852) and Cristariaplicata (Leach, 1815) are available for possible pearl production. It seems that Anodontayourdyi (Morlet, 1886), which is found in northern Vietnam and is the local subspecies of Anodonta woodiana (Lea, 1843), has also already been used for pearl culture.
In the early nineteen nineties, a pearl farm existed in Lake Tay (Ho Tay), which is situated about one
kilometer northwest of Hanoi and is separated from the Red River (Song Hong) by a dam. Other farms had been planned in the Red River delta in Ha Nam Ninh and Hai Hung Provinces.
The farm in Lake Tay was on the eastern shore; it was supervised by the government-owned Ho Tay Fish Development and Investment Company, which also supervised projects for fish culture. In the beginning, the water quality was good and an intact environment was simply guaranteed by the fact that no cars were allowed in the area. In 1986, the company started a study for pearl culture and consulted Japanese experts. In 1990, about 500 pearls were harvested; 1,000 followed in 1991 and 3,000 in 1992. In 1993, the number had risen to 8,000 pearls, and they were exported to Asian countries. A part of the pearls went apparently to the Persian Gulf.
The farm had only a few people and later employed two local grafters. Large bamboo rafts were used, anchored at a distance of about 15 meters from the shore and surrounded by a wire mesh. The mussels were held in round wire baskets at a depth of less than 2 meters. It seems that both Cristariaplicata and Anodontayourdyi were used. They came from natural stocks in the lake and they had a size of about 15 cm X 10 cm. The shells sometimes have a violet-grey colour on the inside and also orange-brown spots.
The grafters used nuclei made of the thick shells of the local freshwater mussel Lamp rotula Simpson, 1900 which is found in the northern rivers. The nuclei had a size of 3 mm to 5 mm and were round to oval and button shaped. They had a white, cream or light orange colour. It seems that off-round nuclei were preferably used, as the resulting pearls looked more natural. Three to four nuclei were implanted on each side of the mantle, together with a tiny piece of mantle tissue. The mussels later on ejected about half of the nuclei, and Keshi cultured pearls developed as a result.
The growth period lasted 18 to 24 months. It is not known whether the mussels were used for a second grafting session. Most pearls resembled Chinese freshwater cultured pearls with a baroque to rounded shape. Pearls with a mother-of-pearl nucleus had a size of 5 mm to 7 mm and in rare cases went up to 12 mm, while nacre thickness was in the range of 0.1 mm to 0.7 mm. Pearls without a nucleus were smaller. Most pearls were pink, while orange and white were rare. In addition, there were brown, mauve, light grey and black pearls. The pearls were probably not dyed artificially, apart from black colouring, but they were probably all bleached.
In early 1996, an exclusive sports club replaced the pearl farm. It was built with foreign capital and later contributed considerably to the pollution of the lake. The old company was replaced with the Ho Tay Investment Company, which planned to reopen the pearl farm on the northern shore of the lake in 1997. Freshwater pearl farms no longer existed in Vietnam at the beginning of the 21st century.
by Elisabeth Strack, 2006
available at www.cpaa.org
