Hmong embroidery and weaving

The Hmong are Indigenous mountain people who originated in Tibet and Mongolia and now live in several countries we visited, including Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand (and other countries we didn’t visit). Hmong people are a small part of the Lao population (7%) but have a strong cultural influence in northern areas of the country. The Hmong language didn’t have a written form until recently, so textiles were an important form of transmitting knowledge.

To learn more, Susanna split off from the boys one afternoon, and took a Hmong embroidery class. It was frustrating, painstaking work. Using burlap, the fabric weave became a grid, onto which brightly coloured threads are sewn.

OckPopTok was the location of the class. It’s a cultural hub that showcases traditional Lao arts and supports women artists around the country. The main focus of this hub is weaving, particularly silk weaving.

“Legend has it that a Chinese princess discovered the secret of silk production when she was sitting under a mulberry tree and a cocoon fell into her tea. She noticed the filament unravel and, like this, silk production was born. Silk is one of most heavily guarded secrets in history. After discovering how to make silk, the Chinese tried to keep the mystery under wraps - they guarded it zealously for more than 3,000 years. The penalty for revealing this secret was social disgrace and even death. Silk was traded throughout Asia and Europe on the famous silk roads. It wasn't until the Byzantine Emperor Justinian sent two monks in 552 AD to China to steal the secret, that silk was produced in Europe.”Okumaya devam et