From mulberries to scarves

So while Scott was indisposed and napping (or trying to), I took a tuk-tuk to the National Silk Centre. What a totally cool tour!

I hop out of the vehicle, say hello to the clump of orange-shirted guys, and one of them disentangles himself and tells me to follow him. I guess he's the designated English-speaking guide.

This is a training center for disadvantaged/poor youth, where they spend a full year learning the entire process of silk-making, and then get certified in it and apparently can now earn good wages as skilled artisans.

So I see where they grow mulberry trees. Then I meet silkworm eggs, see moths mating (they're allowed 5 hours for this), newly hatched worms, older worms, caterpillars starting to weave their cocoons, and finished cocoons drying in the sun. Fascinating. Apparently they allow about 20% of the cocoons to hatch into moths, and kill/dry the rest for the silk. The guide cuts a couple open, dumps out the worms, and gives me them to keep. The female caterpillars make roundish cocoons, while the long thin cocoons are from male worms. Why am I so fascinated by this?

Then we move into the very hot hut where they boil the cocoons and a woman pulls off the threads and twists them into thread and winds them onto a big bobbin. All this is by hand, and looks very sweaty. Did you know that raw and smooth silk aren't the same thing at all? Raw silk is the outer third of the cocoon - thicker fibers. The interior, hard part of the cocoon becomes smooth, fine silk. It takes 45 cocoons (1 fiber apiece) to wind into one fine silk thread. All by hand, inch by inch. The boiled caterpillars can be eaten, but the guide doesn't bother offering me one of those.

He shows me the various dyes they use. The threads are threaded (again by hand) into a fine-toothed metal comb thing, and then a machine (the only electric thing in the place) winds them onto bobbins to prep for the long threads (warp?) on the looms - I guess counting out the appropriate number of threads (5000 if you want a meter-wide fabric) and then keeping them from tangling so they can be loaded onto the looms.

If you want soft silk, you have to bleach the silk (which in Cambodia is yellow; Chinese silkworms make white cocoons). If you want tougher fabric (like tapestry/upholstery) you don't bleach the silk before dying.

They do a sort of tie-dying thing here, terribly complicated, but all these women count threads and tie them together, they dye one color, then tie some more and keep dyeing. My guide says this is the most difficult/advanced job in the process.

The weavers also look hot. These are large wooden looms with foot pedals - probably no different from what they might have used hundreds of years ago. It's like the Industrial Revolution still hasn't hit here. The women weaving solid colors look a bit bored; one has an iPod knockoff she's listening to. Some are weaving patterns and textures, which looks incredibly complex; I'd love to understand the machinery, but I can't make them stop work so I can take a loom apart!

Anyway, the tour is free but dumps you in the gift shop, and after seeing the amount of work it takes to make this stuff, you do feel a bit guilty for thinking it's expensive. It is probably priced similarly to what you'd pay in the USA for machine-made stuff - gorgeous scarves are between $35 and $170, etc - so I don't buy much. Silk fabric is $20-$25/yard. I fall in love with one pattern, envisioning it as drapes, but they don't have any more in stock. The store manager (all THESE employees speak impeccable English - high end wares, high end English?) would be very happy to do a custom order for me. If I want to buy 15 meters ($300), they could make that for me in about a month. Boggle. What is that per hour? She gives me several email addresses so I can contact her from the States to order, if we want.