What first catches the eye of visitors to Don Kai Dee Benjarong village in Samut Sakhon is the street art along a small alley. Those wall paintings tell stories of the community, which has made a name from producing high-quality, five-coloured porcelain known as benjarong for more than three decades.
The community won best Handicraft Village Award from the Princess Prem Purachatra Memorial Foundation in 2001, and One Tambon One Product (Otop) Village Champion of the Community Development Department in 2006. Its porcelain products are certified as five-star Otop of Samut Sakhon.
Urai Taengaiam is the woman who started it all. She has helped create jobs for more than 150 people over the years, and the vibrant ceramics generate about 20 million baht every year for her community.
"I had never thought that making benjarong for a living would lead me this far," said Urai, 62, head of Don Kai Dee Benjarong village.
"It was poverty that made me what I am today."
Born in Krathum Baen to a hand-to-mouth farmer family, she managed to finish primary school (Pathom 4). As a teenager, she got a job at Sathianraphap, the largest ceramic factory in the province where her siblings, relatives and neighbours also worked. The 80 rai factory had seven plants and employed over 2,000 people during its heyday in the 1970s. About 80% of the workers were women who lived in Mahachai, Aom Noi and Krathum Baen areas.
Urai earned only 6.5 baht per day for cleansing and glazing ceramics. But she liked drawing and always peeked around the porcelain painting works. A chance came when her factory needed new artists, so she applied for the position.
She started with basic flower patterns of lai khram (Chinese white and blue pottery) and improve her skills by examining the way a Chinese-speaking master worked. She drew lai khram motifs for five years before being trained to paint traditional Thai patterns by Thai master Sanguan Rakmit, who was among the teams that were trusted to renovate murals of the Temple of the Emerald Buddha in 1974.
Her daily full-time job lasted until the early 1980s when the factory faced closure due to a huge debt of more than a billion baht. Urai suddenly lost her first and only job, where she had been working for almost 20 years.
"I did not have any other skills or knowledge, except I know how to make porcelain. I had to make a living so I decided to do what I know best," she said.
Starting from being a freelancer for a lai khram porcelain factory, she realised that there was a huge demand for benjarong and saw room for a new player.
She had to make a big bet. She counted every baht of her life savings and made up her mind to spend the entire 20,000 baht to start her own business in 1982.
She bought khong khao (glazed white porcelain) from factories in Samut Sakhon and drew her own patterns. She built a kiln in her own backyard, which she also used as her working space.
"I didn't know which patterns would be popular, I drew the same patterns I learned from the factory. It was like an automatic choice for me," she said.
Urai did not have to find a market. She had a friend who bought her benjarong to sell in a shop in the now-defunct Central Silom mall. Later, more vendors came to her house and she received more orders. That was when she recruited her relatives, who also lost their jobs in the factory closure, to work for her. Her backyard later became a small benjarong porcelain factory.
"I did not have a delivery service because my customers came to my house. They waited in front of the kiln and almost scrambled to get our finished products," recalled Urai.
They sold every piece of benjarong they produced. The demand was so high that sometimes they were not be able to meet all the orders.
After a decade of operation, in 1992 she was contacted by staff of a project supported by HRH Princess Chulabhorn to train a group of students whose lives were impacted by Typhoon Gay, which devastated southern provinces along the Gulf of Thailand and killed hundreds of people in 1989.
"I was honoured to learn that my humble factory was chosen by the Princess to be a learning centre for the students," she said, adding that the pupils came in three sets. Each group had about 30 students and they were accompanied by soldiers. The students were trained how to make benjarong from the first to the last steps. The aim was to teach them a handicraft skill they could use to make a living.
Urai also supported her relatives who worked with her to spin off and develop their own businesses. A cluster of five benjarong houses was gradually launched. Their individual houses are connected to each other by small walkways.
Each of them has their own strength. The pioneer Urai Benjarong House specialises in drawing traditional patterns from the period of King Rama II. According to Urai, the patterns differ from others by using black colour for bolding each line of the motifs instead of using typical gold colour. The gold colour, she said, became popular during the period of King Rama V.
It is believed that benjarong originated in China before being imported to Ayutthaya in the 1720s. Benjarong is defined by five colours, with the primary colours being black, green or khram (the colour of indigo), yellow, white and red. In fact, there are more than five colours on the pieces, since those original colours can be mixed to convey different shades like pink, orange, purple and brown.
In the past, benjarong was used for the royal court of Siam and widely used during the early Rattanakosin period. Those imported benjarong also had traditional Siamese motifs like thep phanom and phum khao bin because patterns were embroidered in clothes and sent to craft producers in China, said Urai.
Siam also imported porcelain products from Europe during the period of King Rama IV. The colourful porcelain was popular among members of royal families and nobility throughout the 19th century before being admired by collectors during the 20th century. Today, benjarong is widely used by hotels, government agencies, temples and luxury houses.
Urai expects the market for benjarong will grow once more people know that their products are designed not just for showing the taste of owners or as house decorations.
"Benjarong can be used in daily life by anyone, no matter if they are daily paid workers or the young generation. Our benjarong group has a wide range of products that people can use every day. The prices start from only 25 baht up to six digit prices," she said.
Apart from Urai Benjarong, which focuses on traditional Thai motifs, the other four benjarong houses are Daeng Benjarong, which produces modern designs and items for gifts; Nu Lek Benjarong, which is known for patterns related to Buddhism; Yuenyong Benjarong, which mostly produces the awarded-winning peafowl patterns; and Sangwan Ceramics, which specialises in lai khram porcelain.
The group also has showrooms, a benjarong museum and a homestay service to welcome visitors.
"Our village is the learning centre for old wisdom. We are open for visitors to see the all nine processes of making benjarong from choosing clay and shaping pottery to drawing and painting patterns," said Urai, adding that there are also workshops for those who are interested in learning how to make benjarong as a hobby.
Don Kai Dee Benjarong village has welcomed many honourable visitors during the past years. Among them was HRH Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn who came with her students from Chulachomklao Royal Military Academy in 2009. The Princess also drew a flower on a big white ceramic which Urai kept in a gold frame and placed it neatly in her exhibition room for all to see.
"The Princess told me to preserve the wisdom of creating benjarong because it is our intellectual heritage," she said.
Their benjarong products are also chosen to represent Thai handicrafts in international shows and are exported to many countries including Switzerland, Japan and the United States. The latest order is from Oman.
Urai was bestowed the khru chang (premier artist) title for benjarong by the Hall of Fame of the Support Arts and Crafts International Centre of Thailand in 2012. She was overwhelmed that her diligence and hard work bore fruit and helped make her hometown in Don Kai Dee renowned.
"Our community has been in the business for 30 years. We passed the best and the worst times when the economy was up and down. But we survive because we have never compromised with our quality.
"I hope that whenever people think about benjarong, they will think us, the Don Kai Dee Benjarong village," she said.
