Some of the things we bring into DH Garden Centre, we bring because they’re beautiful and they’ll sell. And some, honestly, we bring home because we couldn’t bear to let them disappear. The five handwoven bamboo baskets sitting in our Vancouver store right now belong firmly to that second kind. After this trip, “disappear” no longer feels like too strong a word.
Let me tell you why.
One afternoon in a fading craft village
On our recent trip back to Vietnam, we made our way to Tất Viên hamlet, in Thủ Sỹ commune, Hưng Yên province. No tourist signs, no crowds, just a quiet farming village in the Red River Delta with the smell of rice straw in the air.
This village was once known for one thing. For generations, nearly every household here wove bamboo baskets by hand, and the whole lane rang with the tapping of bamboo being split. It isn’t like that anymore. When we asked who still truly keeps the craft, the answer kept narrowing until it came down to one name and almost one family: cụ Lương Sơn Bạc. The young people have gone to the cities and the factories. The old weavers have grown old or passed on. So we went to find his house.
Cụ is in his eighties now, and he first picked up a strip of bamboo when he was ten years old. More than seventy years beside a pile of bamboo and reed. I went quiet when I heard that. Some people spend a whole life doing one thing, until their hands remember every motion better than their mind ever could.
He sat in the middle of his yard, the baskets he’d just finished laid out around him in the shape of a fan, golden like a small sun on the ground. We asked to take a photo with him. He laughed, that gentle country laugh, and said, “go on, take it for fun.” We still keep that photo. Every time we look at it, we remember we may have been sitting with one of the last people on earth who still does this the old way.
What is a Vietnamese “đó” bamboo basket?
A Vietnamese đó is a traditional fish-trap basket from the Red River Delta of northern Vietnam, handwoven from aged bamboo. Farmers set it in irrigation ditches and flooded rice fields, where fish and shrimp swim in through the narrow mouth and can’t find their way out. It carries a whole wet-rice way of life inside one small object.
Look closely and the skill shows itself. The body is long and slender, swelling in the middle and drawing in again like an upside-down flower bud. Every strip of bamboo is shaved to the same thickness and woven into tight concentric rings, with the mouth bound off neatly. No machine touches any of it.
How are these handwoven bamboo baskets made?
Each basket is made entirely by hand from aged bamboo, then smoked in the loft above a kitchen fire for days. The smoke gives it that warm brown color and naturally protects it from termites and woodworm, with no chemicals at all.
Cụ finishes one in about an hour. An hour, for a man with seventy years of practice. Someone just learning could spend half a day and not produce one worth keeping. That, really, is the heart of the problem: it takes years to earn hands like his, and almost nobody is willing to put in those years anymore. There’s a quiet beauty to choosing handmade over mass-produced, and we made a short video about exactly that, When You Choose Handmade, You Choose a Better Way to Live, if you’d like to see these pieces up close.
The thing he said that stayed with us
We asked cụ whether he feared the craft would die out, now that so few are left. He answered without missing a beat: this craft can never die, because the world still needs it, and tradition carries on for generation after generation.
We thought about that the whole way home. A man who is, by any honest measure, nearly the last of his kind, holding such unshakable faith in his work. Maybe he believes it because he has to. Or maybe he knows something we don’t: a craft survives as long as there’s still one person who treasures it, then another, then another.
Unique garden decor you won’t find anywhere else in Vancouver
We’re DH Garden Centre, in Kitsilano. Our work is making gardens, porches, and quiet corners of the home beautiful. We’ve always believed a beautiful garden isn’t the one with the most expensive things in it, it’s the one with a soul and a story.
Hang a handwoven bamboo basket on the porch, set it beside a fern or a pothos, tuck in a dried branch, or just let it sit as a piece of decor, and the whole corner takes on a rustic, quietly elegant character you won’t find anywhere else in this city. Guests will ask, “where on earth did you get that?” And you’ll have a real story to tell, the one you just read. It’s exactly the kind of find we point visitors to in our local’s guide to Vancouver souvenir shopping.
For Vietnamese families far from home, the basket carries something more. It’s a piece of the homeland: the ditch, the rice paddy, the childhood of wading through water catching fish. Hang it in the house, and a single glance is sometimes enough to warm you.
Why there are only five
We don’t buy these wholesale, and we couldn’t even if we wanted to, because there’s barely anyone left to make them. Cụ is old now, every basket he makes is precious, and we’d never ask him to churn them out like a factory. Over the whole trip, we asked for exactly five, the five we liked best.
They traveled halfway around the world and arrived at the store just a few days ago. When we opened the box, the faint smell of kitchen smoke was still on them. These five are rare in the truest sense, not a “limited edition” sales line. We don’t know when we’ll make a trip like that again, or whether next time there’ll be anyone in that village left to weave at all.
If you love traditional Vietnamese craft, you’ll love this too
The same love of slow, handmade work runs through the handmade Bát Tràng pottery we carry. Bát Tràng is another centuries-old Vietnamese craft village, and its glazed ceramics make beautiful, durable plant pots. Here’s a quick look: Once You See These Bát Tràng Ceramic Products, You’ll Want One. You can browse the collection on our handmade Vancouver pottery page, then come see them in person at the store.
Planning a visit or hunting for a gift with a story? Read why handmade, hand-painted ceramics are the 2026 gift trend, or browse our guide to unique handmade souvenirs in Vancouver you won’t find at the airport.
Come see them in Kitsilano
We didn’t write this just to sell five baskets fast. We wrote it because, behind a small object on a shelf, there’s a whole life, a craft village down to almost its last family, and an old man’s faith that the tradition carries on anyway.
If you stop by these days, ask us about the five baskets. Whether they’re still here or already gone, we’d love to tell you the whole story and show you the photo we took with cụ. Some things you only fully appreciate once you’ve held them and heard where they came from.
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FAQ
What is a Vietnamese đó basket?
It’s a traditional handwoven bamboo fish-trap basket from northern Vietnam, now prized as rustic home and garden decor.
Where can I buy handwoven bamboo baskets in Vancouver?
At DH Garden Centre in Kitsilano, Vancouver. We currently have only five, brought directly from the weaver in Vietnam.
Are the baskets treated with chemicals?
No. They’re naturally smoke-cured over a kitchen fire, which protects the bamboo from insects without any chemicals.
How should I care for a bamboo basket?
Keep it dry and out of constant direct rain. As indoor or covered-porch decor it will last for years.
