Silk village – treasure of Hoi An

If you are fortunate enough to take in the splendor that is Hoi An ancient town in Quang Nam Province should not miss a new tour to Lang Lua (silk village) by QuangNamSilk Company at 28 Nguyen Tat Thanh Street.

From an idea of an original Quang Nam people who has long time attached to silkworm and mulberry tree in Duy Xuyen Commune of Dai Loc District, the village was born to restore the culture of weaving fabric career and to provide tourists more knowledge on the history of this traditional career. Hoi An in the past was a port shipping silk to the world. Local people take pride of the place where the silk road on the sea took shape. The village is where tourists can get a glimpse into the making process of Quang Nam’s traditional silk and Cham people’s brocade cloths. Tourists to the venue can study 40 kinds of mulberry, ancient styles of looms and silkworm breeds, among others. “The Silk Village is where we preserve a precious collection of related items to the weaving fabric career and a collection of ruong houses (traditional houses in Quang Nam architectural styles). Additionally, we also make Quang Nam silks here,” said Le Thai Vu, director of QuangNamSilk Company. “For over ten years, I have put effort on collecting ruong houses nationwide, hundreds of years old mulberry kinds and ancient looms to equip for the village,” Vu added. Tourists can also admire a collection of old costumes by 54 ethnic minority people in Vietnam displayed in ancient houses there. Those who wish to have a tailored costume or eat traditional Quang Nam food like cao lau (a soup made with noodles, pork and greens), mi Quang (noodles in Quang Nam style) and com nieu (rice cooked in earthenware pot) can ask artisans at the village. Silk Village is located on the road leading to Hoi An ancient town. This tourist and cultural site is 30km away from Danang downtown to the Road 607. Tourists can take a 30-minute bus which costs them VND20,000 (around US$1) to get to the site. For further information, contact the QuangNamsilk at 28 Nguyen Tat Thanh Street, Tan An Ward, Hoi An City, Quang Nam Province, tel: (84-510) 392 1144

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300-year silk village amid Hoi An ancient town

VietNamNet Bridge - After a long time in oblivion, the silk village of more than 300 years old has suddenly revived in the old space, and it is now open for the discovery of domestic and foreign tourists in the hub of Hoi An.

Duy Xuyen silk village has been resumed at No. 28 Nguyen Tat Thanh, Hoi An, Quang Nam province to bring to tourists the miniature of a big trading port of over 300 years ago, which contributed to create the Vietnamese silk road on the sea.

This silk village used to be very famous. But there were periods of time it fell into oblivion because weavers could not find materials and sell their products. But now, thanks to the cooperation with the tourism sector, silk weaving artisans hope to maintain the famous silk village.

In another area, silkworms are bred by mulberry leaves from ancient mulberry trees of the ancient Champa people, in the high mountains of Quang Nam province. These silkworms will make yellow cocoons.

This material is only available in Duy Xuyen silk village.

Water in the pot must be 80 degrees Celsius so the silk cords will be smooth.

The village has about 10 artisans who both weave silk and introduce to tourists about how to make silk and the unique features of materials in Hoi An.

Champa silk is weaved by ancient looms, which are collected from various localities, to show the acculturation between Champa - Vietnam.

Not merely producing silk, artisans also make embroidery products, silk cloths, etc. as souvenirs for tourists.

The commemoration house displays 100 traditional costumes of 54 ethnic groups in Vietnam. It is being extended to host visitors overnight to see silkworms eating mulberry leaves, making cocoons ... source:VNE

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One man’s quest to revive Hoi An tradition

Hoi An is no longer about just lanterns: an audacious businessman is trying to revive the town’s centuries-old tradition of silk production by creating a “silk village” with a million dollars of his own money. Le Thai Vu, director of the Quang Nam Silk Company, spent more than 20 years studying the silk-weaving industry, which he describes as “romantic,” before creating the village as a symbol of ancient rural Vietnam.

It opened to tourists in early August, offering an interesting and intimate insight into one of the country’s traditions. Vu, who has sunk more than VND20 billion (US$960,000) in the village, said it is yet just the first stage. He hopes to bring back a time when, 300 years ago, Hoi An was also a bustling port from where silk-valued as much as its Chinese counterpart in Japan and Southeast Asia – was shipped. He says he did not actually have to create anything, just revive the “golden” traditions. For the silk Vu spent a lot of time looking for seeds of the Cham mulberry tree which has become rare in Vietnam. He chose this variety since the tree is believed to make for the best silk in the country. There were several reasons silk from Quang Nam Province – in which Hoi An is situated – was chosen to offer to kings in the past, and one of the most important was the Cham mulberry tree. His efforts paid off when early this year he found a tree on a mountain in Que Son District. It had been there for very long, but locals did not realize its worth. They showed him 40 other trees in the area, each thought to be around 500 years old and some more than 10 meters tall. He uprooted all of them and planted them in the village. Old Cham women from Ninh Thuan Province, the home of Cham temples on the south-central coast, were employed to operate the looms there together with some younger women. The village’s main products are silk cloth and brocade pieces, the latter a typical garment worn by the Cham. Vu says the village is home to some precious silkworm varieties besides the Cham mulberry, but he hopes it will one day become more than just a mere museum. “It can grow into a silk production center, win back fame for Vietnamese silk which has for decades now lost out to Chinese products,” he says. Creating the village was like going through a course in advanced culture, ethnography, and architecture, he says. He read books, consulted leading architects and researchers about the structure of the ruong – the old wooden Vietnamese house – the looms used by the Cham in the area for more than 1,000 years, and those brought by the Kinh, the country’s predominant ethnic group, from the north. “Putting up the houses felt wonderful. “Each house is like a person. It needs to have its spirit and serves the same purpose as our ancestors once used it for. “I want to make modern people love the houses because Vietnamese houses are very beautiful.” The artisans live and work in the houses now. The 2.1-hectare village at 28 Nguyen Tat Thanh Street, 800 meters from the town center, is an amalgam of the Vietnamese and Cham cultures of the peoples who used to live there. Apart from the old houses are areca ranges, banana gardens and a main path bordering lotus ponds. Visitors are allowed to participate in different aspects of the silk-making process – like picking mulberry leaves from the garden to feed the cocoons. They can buy products from the village, rent silk costumes to put on and walk around, and see dozens of costumes from the early 1900s worn by the country’s 54 ethnic groups at a museum. They can listen to folk songs from of the region sung by young women working at their looms, and enjoy Asian and European buffets served from baskets on shoulder poles like in the past. Visitors are welcomed at the village gate by a small stall selling che, the popular sweet soup, and nearby is an altar house to worship Doan Quy Phi, a woman famous for developing silk-making and dyeing in the region 300 years ago. Vu hopes visitors could experience the same feelings that he himself has, explaining that the village changed him, making him mellow and serene. source: thanhniennews.com

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