A Pottery Factory

 Along the highways, as we were driven from place to place, we passed huge emporia for tourists, all of which had pretty much the same things for sale: silk garments (which didn't please us), enamel ware, embroideries, pottery, and other souvenirs.  The quality varied a lot, from rather vulgar, sort of modern things, to excellent reproductions of traditional pottery and crafts.
Often, in the front, huge marble statues were displayed, some traditional images of the Buddha, dragons, and the like, and other more modern subjects, not works of art, but commercial images of something like works of art.
Behind one of these tourist traps was a vast pottery factory, with a lot of molded ware set out to dry.

 For some reason, we were allowed to wander around freely.  No one was at work, but a few workers were eating in a corner of the place.
The kilns here are huge, in complete contrast to the wood-burning kilns we saw in the pottery village.
Below are the molds for pots.
This equipment, the building that it's in, and the huge store in front of the factory represent a substantial investment and technical sophisticatioin.  Somebody obviously believes that a lot of tourists are going to come to Vietnam, swarm into these stores, and spend money.  I imagine that they also try to export a lot of this stuff.  When I asked our guide who would buy the monumental statues and huge, expensive ornamental urns, he told us that lots of restaurants and hotels use them for decoration.  He added, proudly, Vietnam has ninety-two million people!  That's quite a domestic market.  Indeed, having gotten used to living in a country of barely seven million, I can barely grasp the scale of Vietnam's population.