Preserving the traditional weaving craft of the Thai people in Xuan Chinh commune

It takes a whole week, working day and night, to finish a traditional skirt of the Thai people, said Mrs. Cam Thi Phuong, in Tu Ac village, Xuan Chinh commune (Thuong Xuan).

Mother and daughter Cam Thi Phuong of Tu Ac village, Xuan Chinh commune (Thuong Xuan) are meticulously working on embroidery. Photo: KH

While talking to us, Mrs. Cam Thi Phuong (born in 1964) was quickly spinning her thread to weave fabric. In Xuan Chinh commune, there are currently 600 women's association members, most of whom know how to weave and embroider.

While many other localities have worried about the decline of brocade weaving, Xuan Chinh commune seems to be unaffected by the market and consumer tastes. Every day, whenever women have free time, they hold a needle or sit at a loom to weave fabric to sew ao dai and dresses.

Not producing goods, they just want to make for themselves, their daughters, or their daughters-in-law a beautiful, soft dress. Mrs. Phuong said: Since she was 12 years old, she learned the first embroidery stitches. And when she welcomed her second daughter-in-law to live with her, she also taught her how to embroider and weave. Luong Thi Duyet, Mrs. Phuong's second daughter-in-law, said: When my mother first taught me, I was very shy because learning to embroider and weave requires patience, and I'm not used to sitting for long periods of time. Plus, in the early days, the needle pricked my hand and made it bleed, but I didn't dare tell my mother. Now I'm used to it and like it more.

In order to weave beautiful pieces of fabric, not only Ms. Phuong's family, but most families in Xuan Chinh commune still cultivate mulberry and cotton. In addition, they also know how to use some natural materials from trees, tubers, and fruits available in the garden and forest to make dyes. From these materials, Thai women meticulously cook, make fibers, dye, embroider, and weave into colorful pieces of fabric with various shapes: dragons, snakes, cats, goats... and flower shapes, sun shapes... Ms. Cam Thi Phuong shared: Traditional embroidery has many stages. In which, dyeing fabric takes a lot of time and effort. From going to the forest to get indigo leaves, then boiling water to soak the white fabric threads, then adding lime to knead and mix well, and finally putting the fabric in bamboo tubes to soak in water many times until the fabric reaches the right color, according to the weaver's intention.

“In addition to dyeing, if you pay attention, it will take you at least a week to embroider all the shapes on the skirt,” Ms. Luong Thi Thuong, Vice President of the Women's Union of Xuan Chinh Commune, affirmed. Ms. Thuong also said: Xuan Chinh Commune currently has 600 women's union members out of a total population of more than 3,000. In addition to holidays, in Xuan Chinh, every Monday, women working in the commune office wear traditional skirts. This is a rare beauty that not every locality with a large ethnic minority population can maintain and implement.

Sharing about the preservation and promotion of the value of traditional weaving, Ms. Thuong said: In the coming time, implementing the policy of arranging administrative units at the commune level, merging the two communes of Xuan Chinh and Xuan Le. This will be an opportunity for the traditional weaving profession of the locality to develop further. Especially, gradually becoming a sustainable economic direction, helping people to improve their lives and spreading the cultural values of the Thai community in Thanh Hoa in general and Xuan Chinh commune in particular.

In the space of a small house on the mountainside, watching Mrs. Cam Thi Phuong at the loom and Luong Thi Duyet gently and meticulously moving each needle, I suddenly had the feeling that young women like her would continue to write the village story with the colors of the threads.

PCD

Source: https://baothanhhoa.vn/giu-gin-nghe-det-truyen-thong-nbsp-cua-nguoi-thai-xa-xuan-chinh-252549.htm