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Potters Pour Over Porous Pottery
by Sadao Hasegawa
Tired of concrete flower pots emblazoned with Walt Disney-like animals and Chinese calligraphy? The ubiquitous ones that are stamped out like look-alike widgets from a lifeless mold? Look no further. Several cultured collectors, expats all, sent their favorite messenger, Faithful Sam, on a mission to find something more characteristically Lao than concrete pots. In less than an hour he spied a tuk-tuk loaded to the gunnels with baked-clay pots--hurray!--in a street abutting Thong Khan Kham market and followed it all the way back to some mysterious place in the forest on the outskirts of town where the Mother of all Lao pots resides. What he uncovered was a family business that caters to in-the-know Japanese "porous pot patrons" and just about every nursery owner in Vientiane.
The raw clay comes from kilometer 24 on the road to Paksane. The biggest pots are for lotuses; one man can make six of them in a day. After their creation on potters' wheels--archaeologists claim the concept was initially used in Egypt before 4000 B.C.--the freshly shaped pots are placed in the shade for six days. Then they spend a day in the sun reaching perfect leather hardness. After that, the pots, small ones inside big ones, maybe 100 in all, are placed in a semi-subterranean kiln and cooked at 1,200 degrees centigrade for five days. Then the fire is quenched and the furnace cools down for two more. After that you can get in the "porous pot patron" queue and buy one. 10,000 kip (US$10) includes delivery of the very biggest pot to your door. Subtract 1,000 kip if you pick it up yourself. For Lao-language directions telephone Prathip Senesoupha at (856) 21-412528.