I got to Quan’s “Happy Garden” in the middle of April 2025 when he and his partners were promptly finishing the rough version of “Happy Vietnam” masterpiece. After over 2 months, the work of art is being painted.

Visitors check-in with the masterpieces in the garden.

Looking at the unfinished version, we could easily realise the Vietnam map with Truong Sa and Hoang Sa archipelagoes and flying dragons gracefully coiling around the map of Vietnam and embracing the 2 islands shaped like pearls.

“This masterpiece is named “Happy Vietnam” because the dragons in this work are also happy ones. I want to convey a message of happiness and spread the patriotism spirit and national pride to everyone through this work”, said Quan.

Walking around his family’s land area, I could see not only “Happy Vietnam” but also many other sculpture masterpieces in Quan’s “Happy Garden”. They were the famous Argentinean football player Lionel Messi, Santa Claus and his horses and famous movie characters. Besides, I saw many cute animals and meaningful cultural symbols.

Made from sand and cement with reinforced steel structures, each sculpture is a work of love, carefully shaped by Quan with an eye for details, embedding with its own story and message.

One of his latest and most impressive masterpieces in the “Happy Garden” is the giant mascot “Happy Snake” weighing over 7 tonnes, which was completed before the Lunar New Year of the Snake 2025. Previously, Quan produced the “Baby Dragon”, which was 4.5m high, 10-12 tonne weigh in orange colour in the New Year of the Dragon 2024.

Bui Van Quan used to do farm work before. He fell in love with sculpting statues and giant mascots 3 years ago. It is the passion for art and desire to create funny and meaningful atmosphere for his family and community that motivates him to learn and turn imaginary ideas into lively sculptures.

On his Facebook page, Quan describes himself as a happiness giver. He repeatedly mentioned the word “happiness” through our conversation.

Indeed, happiness has come to him. Since opening the garden to the public for free, it has welcomed tens of thousands of visitors. Most of them shared kind words and expressed their admiration for the gifted craftsmanship of the garden owner.

In line with giant statues and mascots, Bui Van Quan is cherishing a dream to build a “Fairy Tale Garden” in the “Happy Garden” campus right after the “Happy Vietnam” work is completed. The characters from fairy tales like Thach Sanh, Tam Cam and Tri khon cua ta day (It’s my intelligence) will appear in this garden.

Although he received no formal training, he makes up for it with natural talent, a deep passion, and most importantly, the dedicated guidance and mentorship of a teacher in the field of sculpture and modeling.

Quan is carefully refining the details of the work “Happy Vietnam”.

Besides, he often studies on internet and listens to opinions to gain experience.

As most of his works are big and heavy, Quan creates a steel frame based on the design, stretches mesh over it, and then uses a mixture of sand and cement to sculpt the form of each sculpture to ensure good appearance and safety.

With his skillful hands and kind hear, Bui Van Quan is forming a unique cultural space to beautify his homeland of Hiep Hoa district and contributes to enriching the local people’s spiritual life.