Bat Trang is a village where tradition breathes through each ceramic product. Over a thousand family-run workshops stand side by side factories. On any given day, you will find ceramic production spilling into alleys and courtyards, kitchens and storefronts. This is a place where clay dust clings to life. Yet, among these artisans is a young man quietly reshaping what Bat Trang ceramics can be.

Vu Tuan Long, 27, was born into a family deeply rooted in Bat Trang's centuries-old pottery legacy. However, unlike his ancestors who shaped elegant vases and meticulous dragon figures, Long’s fame began with a misshapen clay head, complete with googly eyes and oddly colored lips.

"I wasn’t planning to make anything serious. I just made a little clay head with weird eyes, round lips, some hair and painted it on a whim. I posted the video on TikTok... and forgot about it," Long recalled. (Photo: Vu Tuan Long)

That post, casual and unintended, ignited a surprising response, drawing hundreds of thousands of views, floods of comments, and enthusiastic inquiries from people who wanted to buy the eccentric figure, even if it couldn’t be fired in a kiln.

Long said that the silly piece gave him attention, feedback, and an entirely new direction. Though faded and dusty now, he remains attached to it as the first video he ever posted and the first to go viral.

A screenshot of Vu Tuan Long’s viral TikTok video featuring a silly clay head.

Today, Long’s TikTok account boasts more than 2.5 million likes. His videos are often centered around the jarring contrast between his parents’ refined pottery and his intentionally chaotic style which has turned him into an unexpected symbol of modern creativity. But his journey began in a very different place.

Long had studied economics and worked in finance before turning to pottery. His parents, he recalled, had gently reminded him that if things didn’t work out, there was always pottery to fall back on.

Returning to Bat Trang, Long began by selling his family’s traditional wares which are elegant, meticulously glazed ceramics in hues of jade, brown, and cobalt blue. These finishes are the village hallmark, achieved through wood kilns fueled by rice husks and fired at temperatures between 1,250 and 1,320 degrees Celsius. But even with centuries of history behind them, these pieces proved hard to sell for someone just entering the craft. "Traditional pottery requires experience, and I was new to it,  an outsider, in a way. I didn’t have the skills or the name to really make it work," Long told VOV.

Traditional pottery made by Long's family in Bat Trang village. (Photo: Vu Tuan Long)

In a moment of rest and curiosity, Long shaped a small figure out of leftover clay. He added eyes, a strange mouth, and hair like clumped noodles. He painted it spontaneously with pink lips, green hair, dark eyes and uploaded a video with no expectations. He didn’t know then that he had just made what he now calls a “ceramess.”

“At first, my parents didn’t take it seriously,” he recalled. Everyone around him was sculpting perfect dragons while he was simply making whatever came to mind. They thought he was just playing around.

In a village where mastery is measured by precision, where dragons curl with elegance and glaze whispers of tradition, Long stood unsure. His early pieces felt like noise in a symphony of generations. But then, something changed.

He received a custom order - a fish ashtray. Nothing ornate, just a request from a customer who liked arowana fish. Long molded the body and imagined he would pass it to a workshop finisher. But instead, he handed it to his mother, a master of traditional ceramic painting, for a finishing touch that completely changed his perspective.

"It was a fish ashtray," Long said, "I asked my mom to do the painting. When she finished, I was stunned. The details, the harmony... it felt deeply traditional, even though we hadn’t planned it that way."

Then came another request for a dragon’s head. Long hesitated. He had never sculpted one before and didn’t think he could do it justice. Still, he pushed through, shaping the snout, the brows, the teeth over and over until the form held its weight.

The dragon head that changed Long's mindset. (Photo: Vu Tuan Long)

"It wasn’t just for fun anymore,” he remembered. “It felt like a real dragon which is complete and powerful.” That was when he realized tradition and his own style could blend naturally.

Long had always admired the classical beauty that surrounded him growing up. But in his early days as a creator, he worried he would never match that level of craftsmanship. Those two commissions, the fish and the dragon, allowed him to see that his own voice didn’t need to override tradition. It could live beside it.

Visitors who come for Long’s pots often find themselves immersed in the essence of Bat Trang - the ceramic markets, the traditional kilns, the hum of craft at every corner. His studio is becoming a gateway, drawing people not only to his work but to the village itself. One remarked that the work looked weird and funny but alive, with a childlike quality. Another said each pot seemed to carry a personality and that visiting the studio showed them how much was happening in Bat Trang.

Long has become one of many young artisans shaping a new identity for the craft. Gen Z and Gen Alpha potters are livestreaming from their studios, making cute household items and piggy banks, all the while staying close to tradition. He acknowledged that many young people in the village had started before him and were already doing well. “Honestly, I don’t see myself as anything special,” he said, “I think I’m just one small part of a much bigger shift happening in the village.” 

In February 2025, Bat Trang ceramic village, alongside Van Phuc silk village, was included in the UNESCO Creative Cities Network. They became Vietnam’s first traditional craft villages to receive this distinction.

But maintaining momentum in creative work isn’t simple, said Long. "Everyone reaches a limit at some point. Especially in something as fragile and fickle as art. But custom orders? They keep my brain working."

"If I’m making ten pots  a day, that’s ten different people, ten different visions. I have to get creative just to keep up," Long said. (Photo: Vu Tuan Long)

Each request nudges Long toward a new idea, even if the form is familiar. There’s no room to coast. One client might want something charming and soft; the next, something unsettling or downright bizarre. "I haven’t really run out of ideas yet. Whenever I feel close, I just post something - anything - and someone replies with a wild new suggestion. That keeps things going," he added.

Over time, Long began organizing his work into two categories: one side for experimental, often bizarre creations driven by his personal taste what he calls "gốm gớm" or Ceramess and another that follows customer demand with a softer, more accessible style he calls "gốm xinh." “As someone who sells, you have to respect what your customers want,” he explained, while noting that it doesn’t mean abandoning personal passion. Instead, he tries to run both tracks at once.

That balance is beginning to pay off. International buyers are taking notice. Companies in the US, Germany, and Canada have contacted him about exporting his work. For him, the prospect feels real now. He once dreamed of taking his work abroad. Now, that distant hope is shaping into something tangible. “When people come to see my products, they end up seeing the whole village - the market, the kilns, the craft,” he said. “That’s what I want to keep going: something modern that still keeps the tradition alive.”

Pottery is slow work. It demands rhythm, repetition, and quiet endurance. Clay must be kneaded until it's even and smooth. It must be thrown, trimmed, dried for days. Fired once. Glazed. Fired again. And at any point in this long dance, a single mistake, a trapped air bubble, a careless touch, a moment of haste,  can break everything. And yet, here is someone bringing laughter and weirdness into a place long known for calm, classical beauty, and it is working.

Bat Trang might still be full of elegant vases and refined teapots, but now, there’s also a pot that looks like it just woke up from a weird dream, wonky eyes, an awkward grin, and someone’s buying it with a smile. Because even in a village shaped by centuries of tradition, there’s room for something unexpected, and sometimes, a little crack in the mold is exactly where the light gets in.