It is well known that silk is discovered in China as one of the best materials for clothing -
it has a look and feeling of richness that no other materials can match. However, very few people
know when or where or how it is discovered. Actually, it could date back to the 30th Century
BC when Huang Di (Yellow Emperor) came into power. There are many legends about the discovery of
silk; some of them are both romantic and mysterious.
Legend has it that once there lived a father with his daughter, they had a magic horse,
which could not only fly in the sky but also understand human language. One day, the father
went out on business and did not come back for quite some time. The daughter made him a
promise: If the horse could find her father, she would marry him. Finally her father came
back with the horse, but he was shocked at his daughter's promise.
Unwilling to let his daughter marry a horse, he killed the innocent horse. And then miracle
happened! The horse's skin carried the girl flying away. They flew and flew, at last, they
stopped on a tree, and the moment the girl touched the tree, she turned into a silkworm.
Everyday, she spit long and thin silks. The silks just represented her feeling of missing him.
Another less romantic but more convincing explanation is that some ancient Chinese women found
this wonderful silk by chance. When they were picking up fruits from the trees, they found a
special kind of fruit, white but too hard to eat, so they boiled the fruit in hot water but
they still could hardly eat it. At last, they lost their patience and began to beat them
with big sticks. In this way, silks and silkworms were discovered. And the white hard fruit
is a cocoon!
The business of raising silkworms and unwinding cocoons is now known as silk culture or
sericulture. It takes an average of 25-28 days for a silkworm, which is no bigger than an
ant, to grow old enough to spin cocoon. Then the women farmers will pick them up one by one
to piles of straws, then the silkworm will attach itself to the straw, with its legs to the
outside and begin to spin.
The next step is unwinding the cocoons; it is done by reeling girls. The cocoons are heated
to kill the pupae, this must be done at the right time, otherwise, the pupas are bound to
turn into moths, and moths will make a hole in the cocoons, which will be useless for reeling.
To unwind the cocoons, first put them in a basin filled with hot water, find the loose end of
the cocoon, and then twist them, carry then to a small wheel, thus the cocoons will be unwound.
At last, two workers measure them into a certain length, twist them, they are called raw silk,
then they are dyed and woven into cloth.
An interesting fact is that we can unwind about 1,000 meters long silk from one cocoon, while 111
cocoons are needed for a man's tie, and 630 cocoons are needed for a woman's blouse.
Chinese people developed new way by using silk to make clothes since the discovery of silk.
This kind of clothes became popular soon. At that time, China's technology was developing
fast. Emperor Wu Di of western Han Dynasty decided to develop trade with other countries.
To build a road becomes priority to trade silk. For nearly 60 years of war, the world famous
ancient Silk Road was built up at cost of many losses of life and treasures. It started from
Chang'an (now Xi'an), across Middle Asia, South Asia and West Asia. Many countries of Asia and
Europe were connected.
From then on, Chinese silk, along with many other Chinese inventions, were passed to Europe. Romans,
especially women, were crazy for Chinese silk. Before that, Romans used to make clothes with
linen cloth, animal skin and wool fabric. Now they all turned to silk. It was a symbol of wealth
and high social status for them to wear silk clothes. One day, an Indian monk came to visit
the Emperor. This monk had been living in China
for several years and knew the method of raising silkworms. The Emperor promised a high profit
of the monk, the monk hid several cocoons in his cane and took it to Rome. Then, the technology
of raising silkworms spread out.
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 make silk without
silkworms. Hopefully, they can be successful. But whatever the result, nobody should forget that
silk was, still is, and will always be a priceless treasure.
Written by our column writer Hao Zhuo.
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