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Chinese Silk and the Silk Road
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.
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