What a rooster bowl teaches about the joy of living with old tableware: Lái Thiêu ceramics

Where was it born?

Lái Thiêu is a pottery town north of central HCMC, in the former Bình Dương Province (part of Ho Chi Minh City since 2025). As the heart of Bình Dương’s kilns, it is said to have once supplied tableware throughout the south. Southern ceramics flourished most from the mid-19th to the mid-20th century, and Lái Thiêu produced large quantities of everyday ware such as teapots, bowls and plates painted in blue on white.

Best loved of all were the bowls known as “Lái Thiêu rooster bowls”. On a slightly yellowish white body, roosters, banana trees and chrysanthemums were painted freely in reddish purple, green, black and other colors, and the bowls were everyday tableware in homes across the south. Several old kilns, said to be anywhere from 80 to over 100 years old, still remain in the town. In November 2025, a permanent exhibition of about 300 southern ceramics also opened at the museum of the former Bình Dương Province.

How to tell them apart and choose

With vintage ceramics, even pieces with the same pattern differ in the energy of the brushwork and the way the colors came out, and that individuality is the appeal. Price tags often do not tell you the age or origin, so ask the staff when and where a piece was made. As you talk, the story behind it comes into view. Some people enjoy small chips or worn glaze as signs of a piece’s history, but if you plan to eat from it, it is safest to choose pieces without cracks or chips on the rim.

How to buy and bring them home

Be careful with very old pieces. Under Vietnam’s Law on Cultural Heritage (Luật Di sản văn hóa 45/2024/QH15), items more than 100 years old are treated as “antiques (cổ vật)”, and taking them out of the country is restricted. How this applies to travelers taking items home as souvenirs is not clear under the law, but it is safest to confirm the age when buying anything that looks old and to avoid pieces whose age is uncertain. To carry them home, wrap each piece in paper, sandwich it between clothes and place it in the center of your suitcase.