A Thousand Years of Silk Waves at a small corner of The Old Town

Hi Hiver,
What have you been up to? Today I would like to take you to my favorite coffee in Hoi An City: Daisu Silk.

Experiencing a few turbulent times because of Covid-19, floods, storms... the atmosphere of Hoi An Tet this year is much different from every other year. Most of the shops in the old town are closed. The road is empty. However, the interesting thing about traveling to the town this season is that you can explore every corner, comfortably take pictures without being afraid of crowds. Tired feet, you visit a cafe simulating a textile factory, sip a cup of Italian coffee, enjoy the feeling of peace.

Now, when you visit Daisu Silk, you can not only immerse yourself in the world of handmade silk combined with modern processing techniques but also enjoy delicious coffee drinks. The space inside is spacious.
The bar is hidden behind a large silk weaving machine in the middle of the house, antique-style tables and chairs are arranged around, and the walls are hung with pictures. The shop is located on Nguyen Thai Hoc and Bach Dang streets. The rear gate is decorated like a wind-blown wharf, decorated with golden apricot branches in the Tet atmosphere. This address is located in an old house, so all the interior design is preserved.

The connection between the front and backspace is a skylight, open space. Thanks to the dominant yellow tone, the combination of wood materials and yellow light bring a cozy feeling, suitable for family gatherings in early spring. If you have any questions about the textile industry, you can ask the staff.
If you like, you can buy some silk products as gifts. Daisu Silk's mission is to contribute to the continuation of traditional values and quintessence, combined with hand-crafted techniques and modern trends, to bring domestic and foreign friends valuable fashion products price from Vietnamese silk, bringing national pride everywhere.

Silkworm is a leaf-eating insect, perhaps it will also be destroyed like many other crop-destroying leafworms if people do not discover the special nature of the substance it releases during growth and development, that is silk, thin transparent silk fibers, but with durability and attractive iridescent beauty.

Silkworm rearing
Silkworms prefer a cool climate, the right time to raise silkworms is in autumn and spring. The life cycle of silkworms from hatching to releasing silk, creating a safe from 23-25 days, divided into 5 ages, undergoing four molting times, small silkworms are raised separately and fed young mulberry leaves, mulberry leaves are the food. The main food of silkworms and also the raw material for silkworms to make silk.
Mulberry is usually grown on fertile alluvial soil and is cut twice a year to grow fast and strong, enough to provide leaves for silkworms, picking mulberry leaves must be based on the age of silkworms, including now also picked from the top, small silkworms pick young leaves, big silkworms pick leaves of pine needles, mulberry trees have a strange growth power, if they pick all the leaves on the branches, after a week the tree will grow full of leaves. Mulberry leaves for silkworms must be clean mulberry leaves, without the smell of pesticides, but not washed with water.

Silkworms eat all day and night, silkworms eat for 4 days and then lie still and do not eat anymore, called sleeping silkworms, silkworms stop eating mulberries, move little, and raise their heads.
After 2 days of sleep, silkworms will molt and turn to the next age, silkworms at 5 years old are silkworms that eat the most to accumulate nutrients before releasing silk called idle, during the idle period, the amount of food consumed is 82% of the total amount of food consumed other age.
After about 3 weeks, the silkworm grows to its maximum size, its body is round, its skin is glossy and transparent, the silkworm stops eating, that's when the silkworm is ripe, its body is filled with a transparent calendar, at this time the silkworm has a tendency to head up, crawling to find a suitable place to nest, ready to release silk, create cocoons.

Release silk to create a cocoon
Ripe silkworms catch silkworms to dodge so that silkworms release silk to create cocoons. Ne is a frame made from jute tree trunks, consisting of 5 layers, the jute trunks are arranged to form airy rectangular cells. Silkworms release silk to create a safe from the outside to the inside, first a few rings of raw silk wrap the outside to shape the cocoon called a cocoon, within 4 consecutive days, the silkworm rotates its body in a figure 8 motion about 350 thousand times continuously, released into a silk thread nearly 1km long, wrapped around me to form a cocoon.

Silk is actually a liquid, viscous and transparent protein fiber, secreted from the salivary glands of silkworms, when exposed to air, this liquid solidifies and forms silk fibers. Mature silkworms secrete a second liquid called sericin, which is a type of glue that glues two thin silk branches together into a silk thread... After releasing all the silk, the exhausted silkworm lies still in the cocoon and turns into a pupate, at this time, it can begin to remove the cocoon to take to the nursery.

Unravel
Incubation is the process of pulling silk from the cocoon into a silk thread. From the time the silkworm is ripe, about 7 days later, start incubating the silk. In about 5 days, it is necessary to incubate all the closed cocoons, because if the silkworm is slow, will turn into his son, he will bite the cocoon to come out, causing the silk thread to be bitten off, unable to grow the silk anymore.
To incubate silk, first, drop the cocoon into a pot of boiling water, turn the cocoon to make the sericin glue partially dissolve, the cocoon is soft, and the outer cocoon layer is peeled off to find the original silk termite to draw the silk thread. The young poet pulls silk from 10 cocoons to form a silk thread. Depending on the type of silk, the head is taken in the middle of the body is taken from the pupa, it is divided into cone silk, sow silk, stingray silk, or original silk.

The silk thread is wound on bobbins like spool cores arranged vertically in a horizontal row and then run into round wooden silk reels lying horizontally on a pot of boiling water, to roll into raw silk shells and then brought out to dry in the sun. The silk fiber is one of the natural fibers with high strength, in terms of silk fiber properties similar to wool and human hair, according to scientists' research, the cross-section of the silk thread has a triangular shape, with angles round so light can shine at many different angles, giving the silk yarn a natural iridescent look.
Silk spinning wheel
From silk thread, depending on the quality of silk and the way of twisting the silk yarn, there will be different types of silk different qualities, depending on the number of yarns, the silk fabric will adjust to thin thickness, creating a variety of rich silk fabrics with different textures enough thinness, drape, clear, glossy or soft-hard, iridescent.
Staining

Newly woven silk is called rustic silk, only the ivory white color of silk, still dry because of sericin glue, through the dyeing process, silk will have more unique colors.
Before dyeing, silk is soaked in hot water to remove all the glue clinging to the silk called silk. Traditionally, the dyeing method of Van Phuc silk village, Nha Xa silk village, Ma Chau silk village is dyed with silk natural materials such as bark, leaves, tubers such as brown tubers, etc. Today, with modern dyeing techniques with industrial dyes giving silk more diverse, sharper, and more vibrant colors, modern techniques such as dyeing silk fibers before weaving have contributed to creating Silk fabrics with many unique colors and patterns.

Coming to Daisu Silk is coming to silk culture, besides having relaxing moments next to the poetic old town, with a cool and airy space, quietly watching the boats drift by, the pictures solid wall with time.

After leaving the coffee shop, I stopped by the nearby Phap Bao Pagoda.

Da Nang and Hoi An are two attractive tourist destinations, loved by many domestic and foreign tourists.
Not only possessing many famous landscapes and tourist areas, Da Nang and Hoi An also have many famous sacred temples, with unique architecture and beautiful scenery like a fairyland. Located on Hai Ba Trung Street, next to the old town and other monuments of Hoi An city, Phap Bao Pagoda is quiet and majestic, bringing a feeling of tranquility and peace to temple-goers. On each new year occasion, the temple grounds are decorated with fresh flowers from different regions, bringing vibrant and bright colors, but no less sacred.

The Buddha hall is decorated with respect. In the middle is the statue of Shakyamuni Buddha preaching the Dharma, in front of the statue of Amitabha Buddha and Maitreya Bodhisattva statue. The altars on both sides have statues of Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara and Bodhisattva Dai The Chi.

The pagoda was restored by Venerable Thich Hanh Niem in 2000. The temple currently has an office of the Buddhist Representative Board of Hoi An town. The pagoda is located in the center of Hoi An ancient town - a World Cultural Heritage - so it often welcomes a lot of Buddhists, domestic and foreign tourists to visit and worship. Hoi An is still more beautiful every day, every corner is ancient and mysterious, always waiting for people to come and discover.

Hope one day, you have the chance to visit this interesting old town.
Have a great day!