|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Silk |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
Silk
Silk is one of the best materials for clothing that has hardly any
match in the world. Reputed to be "the queen" of fabrics,
it is light, lustrous and
durable. Also it has the advantage of being
soft to the touch, resistant to heat and breathing very well. All
these features make it an ideal fiber for
beautiful satins, charming
brocade and attractive dresser. If one goes to a traditional opera
in China, he will find people from well-to-do families in
silk dresses,
which are believed to be commensurate with their social status.
China is the first producer of silk in the world. Silk production
was started in the country about 4,500 years ago.
Silkworm breeding is done by farmers in the rural areas. It takes
an average of 26-27 days for a silk worm. The farmers used to breed
the worms
twice a year, in spring and autumn. Now, however, the farmers
do the silkworm breeding 3, 4 or 5 times a year, provide the mulberry
leaves, the
only food for the worms, are available. Silk worms are
hungry creatures, too. They eat a lot. In fact, they have to be fed
every four hours, including at
night. Silkworms are heavy sleepers
by nature. They keep eating the leaves for a couple of days and then
got to a long sleep. In a lifetime of 20 to
30 days, a silkworm goes
to four long sleeps, each of which lasts about 24 hours. When they
wake up from a sleep, they plunge into eating the
leaves with a better
appetite than before. The last sleep is the longest sleep-about 36
hours or even more. When they wake up, they are ready to
spin cocoons.
When the cocoons are made, the farmers will pick them up and put them
into bamboo baskets and transport them to the
purchasing centers set
up by the silk companies right in the rural areas. There, heating
has to be done in good time to all the cocoons in order to
kill, or
rather, stifle the chrysalises inside. If they fail to do this, the
worms will transform themselves from chrysalises into moths and emerge
out
of the cocoons, rendering them useless for reeling purposes with
a hole in each of them.
From one cocoon one can get a silk thread which is between 800 and
1,400 meters long. A silk thread in actual use, however, comes not
from one
cocoon, but from 6 to 10 cocoons.
A talk about silk or silk production in China is never complete without
a reference to the world-famous Silk Road. In 139 B. C. Zhang Qian
was
dispatched by the Han Emperor to China's western neighbours to
promote trade and friendly relations. From then on, for about 1 000
years, the
Silk Road was the artery for the two-way flow of goods
between China and what we now call the Middle East, Europe and Africa.
Silk production in
China was so well developed and silk products from
China were so popular abroad that China was exporting huge amounts
of silk and silk
products in exchange for what the Chinese needed
but did not produce themselves, such as ivory, precious stones and
spices of various sorts in
addition to the introduction of such alien
fruits and vegetables as tomatoes and water-melons. The Silk Road
extended westward, from the Wei
River valley in central China, past
the Hexi Corridor and the present Xinjiang, across the mountain passes,
which served as the boundary between
China and its western neighbours,
all the way to the Mediterranean Sea. Silk and silk goods from China
would leave Xi'an, the then capital of
China, for such destinations
as Damascus, Istanbul, Cairo and Rome.
Thousands of years have passed since China first discovered silkworms.
Nowadays, silk, in some sense, is still some kind of luxury. Some
countries are trying some new ways to get silk without silkworms.
Hopefully, they can be successful. But whatever the result, nobody
should forget
that silk was, and still always be our national treasure.
Remember: what silk does for the body is what diamonds do for the
hand.
Home 
