Cam grew up in Hoa Binh, in a farming household. Those days had a rhythm that is still clear looking back now. School in the morning, following the grown-ups out to the fields or up the hill in the afternoon, and on free days following the small stream to hunt for crabs and snails until the light went.
Within that rhythm, the things that made you happy were all very small. A bowl of hot rice on getting home with soil still on your feet. A basin of warm water to soak your feet on a cold evening. The sound of firewood cracking in the stove. Even now, having travelled more and seen more, we find those things still standing in their place.
What a hard stretch usually leaves behind
A hard stretch teaches you to measure everything again. When even having hot water to wash takes effort, hot water becomes something to be glad about. When you have to walk a long way to reach where you are going, a place to sit down becomes a gift. That measure, once you have it, stays with you a very long time.
We do not think hardship is something to wish for. Only that when it has come, it usually leaves one thing behind, and that thing is the ability to feel enough with what is simple. A person with that ability is hard to lead astray by anything outside, because they already know what truly puts them at ease.
This works its way into how we do things. In the workshop, the hard days are usually the days that teach the most. On a damp day, a whole round of candles came out with a wax surface that did not pass, and those jars were kept for use at home. Next time, we knew to read the weather half a day earlier. There is no way to learn that except by having got it wrong.
Why we make small things
If happiness usually comes from simple things, then making simple things kindly is work worth a whole life. A candle jar changes nothing large in your day. It only marks the beginning of a pause, gives your eyes one point of light to rest on, and one scent so your mind knows what time it is.
So when choosing what to make next, we tend to ask each other a very simple question. Will this make someone's evening easier. If the answer is still vague, we set it aside. The things we are preparing, such as herbal foot soaks or a small stool for sitting on the veranda, all come from asking that way.
As for the effort, we leave it behind in the workshop, in the rounds redone, in the waiting for wax to cool that nobody sees. What should reach you is only an object that fits, that works, and that quietly does its job.
A few questions you often send us
What spirit does ZUNGZA follow
We follow what goes with nature and what is just enough. Each piece does one thing, does it for a long time, and makes an evening of yours a little easier.
Why does ZUNGZA keep a slow rhythm
Because in this craft the waiting is longer than the doing, and a wax surface needs its own time. We choose to go slowly so that everything reaching your hands passes.
Who is Cam
Cam is the person who built ZUNGZA, whose real name is Nguyen Diep An Linh, born in Hoa Binh into a farming household. Most of our directions of scent begin in the days spent there.
Read more the story of Hoa Binh and the small stream, the words just enough at ZUNGZA, and bringing a little forest into the house.