In the tiny country of Laos, women spin silk into stories. Here in Indochina’s crossroads, silk looms weave a collective history of the complex culture. The threads are shaded by tales of bordering Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, and the Golden Triangle tribal regions of China and Myanmar.
Nations’ borders have come and gone with alarming frequency, but for women, weaving hand-spun silk has been a reassuring constant. Geometric tribal patterns emerge from the blank canvas of a talented weaver, painting mythology and history into one fabric. If you can settle in to the languid pace of Laos, you’ll be captivated by the tiny country’s story and the fabled silk it produces.
The country’s forty-seven ethnic groups contribute voices to the song conducting Lao women to their deserved place in the textile world.
Long, hand-woven silk skirts are worn daily by most Lao women. These skirts, called sinh, are a striking element of the visual landscape—women wear them pedaling on bicycles, working in rice paddies, kneeling in temples, and walking the streets of towns and villages. Most sinh are hand-woven and bordered by designs that reflect the animistic spirituality of the country. A skilled weaver is a cherished woman who bespeaks a family wealthy enough to allow her a lifetime to learn the perfection of weaving skills. These skills are emerging into the world of décor and art worldwide.
Laos has always been the geographical center of Indochina—and the epicenter of much of its turbulent history. During just the past one hundred years, Laos has been invaded and separately occupied by both the Japanese and the Vietnamese, ruled by Thailand, and colonized by the French. It was extensively bombed by the US’s war in Indochina. Its 600-year-old royal family briefly yielded to become a constitutional monarchy, and then in 1975, Laos saw the abdication of its beloved king. Since 1975, it has been governed by the Communist Lao People’s Democratic Republic, called Lao PDR. And through all of this, women wove.
Today, the small country struggles to recreate its culture, and to rebuild its economy in the haunting presence of the American Wars’ residue. The aching poverty of the nation is demonstrated by UN and World Bank statistics, which show Laos to have a lower GNP than countries like Bangladesh or Haiti. The average annual income is $300. The resurgence of weaving as a small industry signals the region’s improving health. Women are returning to weaving as respected and proud artisans, and learning business skills to market their wares.
Old ways are giving way to new in Laos; things are changing—slowly—the way everything moves in this unhurried place. Young, orange-robed, novice monks are spotted doing email in Internet Cafes, across a road from a grandmother carrying poles suspending baskets of sticky rice or vegetables. Infrastructure problems may make much of the country uninhabitable, but always, women weave.
Lao women have always made fabrics for significant events in their lives. They make their own wedding garments and burial cloths, cloths to wrap newborn babies; young girls weave skirts or handkerchiefs to give to a boy they admire. To the uninitiated it may seem just an outdated way of producing cloth, a task better left to the whirs of precision machinery. But to a woman at a loom, it is a world in itself, capturing culture, history, dreams, and art in one soft draping of silk.
The traditional art had been in danger of disappearing, vaporized in the struggles of the century. Heirloom pieces were packed away in stone jars in remote villages and refugee camps, and the more intricate silk designs were no longer being made. Devastated by years of warfare, women still carried the complex cultural memory of the unique, ancient tribal patterns, and their own weaving methods. Girls in Laos traditionally have little access to education, and learning to weave was a way to achieve status, to demonstrate marriageablity.
