Wet and Sticky, Soft and Silky

A lesson in Vietnamese lotus silk

Ms. Thuan is seventy-one-years-old, a fact she is quick to share in a country that reveres its elders. Her family has been raising and weaving silk for three generations (she began reeling cocoons when she was five). Thuan understands silkworms the way Cesar Millan understands dogs—well, maybe not exactly, but she knows what makes them happy.

Happy silkworms spend the first thirty days of life eating perfectly ripened mulberry leaves, increasing their weight 10,000 times. They need to be fed every four to five hours, no exceptions. However, despite their robust appetite, they are actually quite delicate and susceptible to disease—a good silkworm farmer (sericulturist) keeps an arsenal of antibiotics on hand. But most importantly, once the voracious dears have spun their precious cocoon (another two or three weeks), it’s vital the farmer intervene before the final stage when the burgeoning moth pierces the cocoon with a “chemical weapon” enabling it to escape and fly away.

For a sericulturist, escape spells disaster. Once the cocoon is pierced, its mile-long strand of elegance is broken into a thousand pieces. Without a moment to lose, the farmer steps-in and boils the little buggers to death.

Not surprisingly, vegetarians have a difficult time with silk farming. Wild silk, which is harvested from broken cocoons is akin to a veggie burger. But experts agree, it’s just not the same as that “smooth as silk” feel from a murdered moth.

Just fifty kilometers outside of Hanoi, Ms. Thuan lives in mulberry heaven. Technically, Lâm Đồng, located in the central highlands is the silk capital of Vietnam, but Thuan’s home in Hanoi’s My Duc District is considered the hub of mulberry farming in northern Vietnam.

But I have not traveled halfway around the world to learn about raising silkworms. Instead, I have come to learn about Ms. Thuan’s relatively recent enterprise, weaving the fine threads of the lotus stem known as lotus silk. Although lotus silk was discovered in Myanmar more than a century ago, it is still relatively unknown even among the fiber elite.

Thuan’s venture into lotus silk began in 2015 when she won first prize in a nationwide contest for creative farmers. Her blue ribbon was awarded after she “trained” silkworms not to spin a cylindrical cocoon, but to spin silk across a flat, wooden surface. This is her Cesar Millan moment. Typically, a silkworm will make its cocoon by using the tightly spaced branches to spin the silk to and fro. Because Thuan has studied this process for years, she realized that if the silkworms weren’t given a branch to attach the cocoon, they would ultimately release their silk along a flat surface, or, for that matter—anywhere. As Thuan explains, the farmer must constantly pick-up the worms as they arch-up their heads in search of an area to spin, and then relocate it a few inches away from the others to ensure they are equidistance apart.

It’s like bumper cars for silkworms in reverse.

This novel method is used for creating silk-filler in quilts, not the luscious yarn that is traditionally reeled and woven. The resulting sheet of “self-woven,” raw, flat cocoon is subsequently washed, boiled, and placed inside a layer of silk cloth and then eventually stitched into an obscenely soft (and warm) quilt.

The Vietnamese government was so impressed by her innovation they decided to expand her talents by sending her to Myanmar to learn about lotus silk. As the saying goes, “It’s all very simple, as long as you know how.”

By chance, my visit with Ms. Thuan comes the day after a television crew has been to her home. They are news people, not fiber junkies. And so, when she learns I am a journalist specifically interested in natural fibers, she grabs my left hand with delight. (She also doesn’t let it go for the next thirty minutes.) I know this gesture is a sign of endearment, but I rely on my hands to talk—particularly when I’m in a foreign country and feel the appropriate hand gestures will somehow make my words easier to translate. But I suspect even if I wasn’t in a foreign land, I would still need both hands; my words don’t sound the same with just five fingers. Except I really don’t need any words at all, Thuan immediately starts chatting excitedly about silk with no prompting. I quietly listen while her husband quietly refills my cup with green tea. (Because of Covid, I am a bit rusty on some of my cultural queues, such as an empty teacup means you obviously want more green tea, not you have had enough!)

I keep nodding my head as she talks about the different phases of rearing silkworms, when one of the workers softly enters the room carrying a small plate containing a half dozen bright yellow cocoons and two newly hatched moths; they are frantically having sex.

The woman sets the China plate on the table in front of us (were this a different scenario, I would expect it to hold a small, tossed salad with tomato wedges on the side) but instead, this is a fiber interview, so the conversation temporarily pauses while we engage in a bit of lepidopterist voyeurism.

“You know what they are doing?” She chirps, in a squeaky voice befitting her stature.

“Ahhh…. yes, I do.” Not exactly sure where on the cultural spectrum discussing moth sex falls, but she keeps smiling and pointing and so I smile and take some video with my phone, which necessitates her finally letting go of my hand.

Eventually, we begin talking about lotus silk. I’m curious about where she goes to harvest the stems? I know the silk must be extracted within twenty-four hours after they are cut, but I haven’t seen any ponds in the area.

“I will take you now,” and as we walk outside, there is a stack of traditional conical hats, but unlike the ones dotting the heads of every rice grower I have ever seen, these hats are neon green and not the traditional pale yellow made from straw. That’s because these hats are made from lotus leaves.

Ms. Thuan carefully demonstrates how the hat not only blocks the sun, but once it’s removed, I can use it as a fan, (she demonstrates by waving it quite gracefully across her face). She reaches-up to put the hat on my head, but I know what’s coming next is going to be seriously awkward.

For starters, my hair is heaped on top of my head because it’s ninety-five degrees with one hundred percent humidity. No number of elastics, barrettes, and bobby pins will make it look nice. I’m not about fashion. I’m just trying not to pass out. In addition to my mountain of hair, I also keep my glasses on top of my head, constantly switching between nose and head as the need dictates. There is simply no space to put this cone-shaped hat on my head without looking as if I have just stepped-off the set of Saturday Night Live. And the final insult, if you will, is that my new chapeau will add another four inches to my five-foot-ten frame, making me look like the wife of the Jolly Green Giant.

Without hesitation, I quickly take-off my glasses, pull down my hair, and bend in half so she can place the hat on my head. It wobbles a bit from side-to-side, but it’s secure for the moment. Thirty seconds later I must take it off in order to get inside the car.

It’s a five-minute drive through the village to a narrow country lane—this is the way to the lotus ponds. They have always been here, but once Thuan began using the silk, she made an agreement with the land (pond) owners to harvest their crop. The entire production area is only a few hectares, but it is densely packed and provides her with all the lotus stems she needs.

Lotus silk can only be harvested from June to October when the flowers are in bloom. Ideally, when the lotus is a deep pink, the strands are at their best—not too thin and not too thick. But it is the end of the season and most of the flowers have gone by. The same woman who delivered my “salad plate” has come with us and she is now donning a pair of camouflage, waterproof overalls. If we were in Maine, she would be preparing to go out lobstering. Instead, she wades into the pond and reaches for a pale pink flower. I am amazed the voracious mud hasn’t sucked the boots right off her little Vietnamese feet!

When Thuan began weaving lotus silk, she would troll through the tangle of floating vines, inspecting each one carefully before plucking. Now, she is able to determine which ones are ready with a single glance. The few remaining flowers aren’t really suitable, but they are fine for demonstration purposes. It’s the actual spinning, however, that intrigues me.

During the short walk back to the car, I am trying to take pictures but it’s not easy when you’re a conehead. The brim of the hat interferes with my camera lens, and my glasses are now sitting useless in my pocket. I try resting the hat behind my neck, except the chin strap has turned into a noose. Eventually, I give up and sling it over my arm, but Thuan quickly scolds me.

“Camera not important. Save beautiful skin!” As she taps across her own unblemished cheeks.

I don’t want to tell her that I put on SPF 50 every day, because my dermatologist knows that’s a lie. But I also know that three minutes of exposure is not going to alter my aging process—hat or no hat. And yet . . . I don’t want to risk offense and so the hat goes back on, and the camera gets put away.

Lotus silk represents a happy chapter in the march for environmental sustainability. Harvesting lotus stems is actually critical to preserving the health of the water. Once the flower blossoms and dies, the stems begin to rot. The rotting stems then clog the free movement of water which in turn begins to foul, attracting a myriad of issues that are frequently classified as scum.

Scum is never good.

Five minutes after my pond tutorial, we’re at the workshop across the street from Thuan’s home. It’s time for her to teach me how to spin the lotus fiber. She begins by sitting down on a short wooden stole (it can’t be more than ten inches high) next to an equally short table, and I sit down on the opposite side silently wondering how I will get back up?

The lesson begins with Thuan wiping down the wooden bench with a wet rag, the way I wipe down my kitchen counter. She then plucks three or four stems from a bucket of water and using a box cutter, she scores the stems just enough so they will open easily. Then she twists her wrists in opposite directions and pulls until one end of the silk strands are completely exposed; the fine threads that are still a bit wet and gooey—but not scummy! With one hand, Thuan rolls the threads to and fro, spinning them into a single, fine strand. She then reaches for another handful of stems, slices, twists, and rolls, being careful to seamlessly join them with the first thread. It does not remind me of spinning wool, but it does remind me of the lesson I had in spinning sisal; no wooden table needed, my instructor rolled the threads along the top of her bare thigh.

Now, it’s my turn.

I grab the box cutter, but Thuan quickly reaches over and adjusts my grip. If I cut at the wrong angle, I’ll ruin the stems completely, but they are tougher than I anticipate and as I bear down, I’m more concerned about slicing my thumb than the silk. Finally, I manage to cut, twist, and pull… but then comes the rolling and my style is all wrong. Thuan seizes back the box cutter for another demonstration. She makes it looks so easy.

I won’t say my first lotus silk lesson is a complete failure, but I’m certainly not honor roll material. Like most handicrafts, it takes practice to feel the tension of the fiber, how much water to use, how hard to cut, etc. Thuan is very patient with me, but I’m better with my fingers on a keyboard, not a cutting board.

Once the silk has been spun, requiring hundreds of thousands of strands (so many murdered moths!), the actual weaving process is done on a traditional floor loom. There are a half-dozen looms banging and clanging away in her workshop, most of them are still being used for silk where the market demand is high. Lotus silk is very dear … with an equally dear price. Unlike cashmere, for example, where finer cashmere costs more and is readily detectable in the hand, lotus silk is not softer than silk—quite the opposite, and so the higher price tag reduces the number of customers willing to pay more. The increased cost, however, certainly doesn’t alter Thuan’s appreciation for lotus silk. In fact, she’s crazy about it. But she quickly admits that it holds dye differently than silk and so she needs to adjust her dye baths accordingly.

Perhaps, I shouldn’t have been surprised but I was when I noticed the lotus silk was a brilliant shade of yellow as compared with what I had seen in Myanmar. Thuan quickly explains that the lotus silk from Japan was even darker than hers. Understandably, the different nutrients in the water, and likely, the species of lotus affects the color of the fiber. But my limited knowledge of botany doesn’t include such nuances, nor does it alter my appreciation for this prized wild fiber and Thuan’s great talent and enthusiasm.