Watch a coal miner's craft that now survives in one workshop
Down to one couple
Coal carving is a handicraft of the Quang Ninh coal region, begun in the 19th century under French colonial rule when miners carved anthracite for their own amusement and the practice spread from mine to mine.
Why it's unique
The craft exists where the anthracite is mined and essentially nowhere else. The material is the reason: anthracite is hard and lustrous enough to saw, chisel, carve and polish, which ordinary coal is not.
It flourished in the 1990s into workshop clusters in Hong Hai ward and a run of shops on Le Thanh Tong street. It is now practised by a single couple in the city and is at real risk of disappearing entirely.
Before you go
Every step is manual: sawing, chiselling, carving, polishing. The pieces are figurines of deer and lions and the bay's own karsts, rendered in the rock the province was built on.
Ask to watch rather than only to buy, and then buy something, because that is the only thing keeping it going.
This is the honest counterweight to the bay. Ha Long is a coal city with a UNESCO site attached, and almost no visitor sees the first half of that sentence.