To show his deep love and obsession with traditional porcelain dishes and antiques, a Vietnamese man has spent the last 25 years of his life decorating his house with almost 10,000 porcelain plates, bowls and urns.

Nguien Van Truong, a retired soldier, first fell in love with porcelain antiques in 1986, a year after being discharged from the army and returning to his home village of Kieu Son, Vinh Phuc province.

After starting life afresh as a carpenter and got the chance to paint the table and chairs of a local antique collector who first introduced him to the beauty of traditional porcelain dishes.

Truong was so impressed and captivated that he decided to take up the collector lifestyle, and scoured all of Vietnam’s northern provinces in search of traditional porcelain objects, and spent all of his money trying to acquire as much of it as possible.

The antique lover’s obsession with porcelain was hard to accept, even by his family, especially since he would spend every last money he had on it, and then borrowing more from neighbours, relatives and friends.

He travelled the country, visiting every place where he heard that people were selling porcelain dishes, and carried the objects in his backpack for weeks, sometimes months on end.

The 58-year-old’s original plan was to buy the porcelain and then sell it off for a profit, but after seeing the “bleeding of antiques” overseas, he just couldn’t be involved in the practice.

So instead of selling the dishes, he simply stockpiled them until he could figure out what to do with them.

Nguien Van Truong said that he was afraid his collection would get stolen or broken if he simply kept it in his home.

He even took into consideration his own demise, and the probable sale of his porcelain objects by his family, something that he couldn’t cope with.

So to make sure his collection endured the test of time, he decided to incorporate it all into his home.

Truong’s house is now covered in almost 10,000 porcelain plates, bowls and urns.

The collector says that even though most of the pieces incorporated into his home are beautiful, they are relatively cheap.

He also has a few pieces dating back to the 17th and 18th centuries.

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