The Nation
Siem Reap, Cambodia
Village weavers find global opportunity as they help heal wounds of 20-year war
Thai silk has, as we know, made a name for itself; now it is the turn of Cambodian silk to emerge onto the global market, reviving a heritage lost for a century, and contribute to the healing process after 20 years of civil war.
Its unique designs and weaves have gone on display at the Smithsonian Freer Gallery in Washington DC, in Japan and at a silk shop in Siem Reap.
The money generated has breathed new life into 500 village weavers and their families, bringing them back from the brink of starvation.
The civil war took a heavy toll on many aspects of Cambodia's cultural heritage, ancient temples and silk-weaving among them, just as it cut a people off from the economic benefits of the world at large and brought a halt to technological development.
Kikuo Morimoto, 58, acting director of the Institute for Khmer Traditional Textiles, has devoted himself for more than a decade now to the revival of Cambodian silk.
Morimoto, who founded the institute, has spent years seeking out old skilled weavers from Phnom Penh to the ancient temple town of Siem Reap, where he has set up a workshop.
"Traditional Khmer textiles nearly died out during the 20-year civil war in Cambodia. I want not only to revive them but also to create a sustainable living for the people who make them," he said.
"I don't want them to produce silk for commercial purposes as in Thailand; I want Cambodians to concentrate on developing and reviving their culture and maintaining it for ever," he stressed, "I want them to make clothes for the heart rather than commercial wear."
Morimoto said a leading Thai silk shop had approached him to send it Cambodian silk but he had refused.
The institute has reached breakeven point, its sales revenue reaching US$20,000 (Bt769,000) a month, which covers expenditure.
Morimoto has long experience in the industry, having been an apprentice of the Japanese art of yuzen kimono silk-dyeing in his home town of Kyoto, then as a dyeing expert in a Thai textile factory, then running a silk business with his own brand, Bai Mai, in Bangkok. He has also lectured on textile design at the King Mongkut Institute of Technology Lat Krabang and at the silk-production development centre in Surin.
He learned natural dyeing techniques in Chiang Mai from Saengda Bannasith, the acknowledged master craftsman of Thai silk and a pioneer in producing pure natural silk.
Living in Thailand for 10 years, Morimoto gained much knowledge about Thai silk, whose 100-year history, he says, derives from the Cambodian silk tradition.
Initially he wanted to set up a sustainable silk-development project in San Kamphaeng district in Chiang Mai province, but rapid economic growth and the popularity of synthetic fibres prompted him to go to Cambodia, where people really needed help.
So in the 1990s he set off to realise his dream.
The institute had a three-phase plan focused on yellow silk yarn. Morimoto applied his knowledge of production and natural dyeing to the revival of Cambodian silk.
The first stage, 1995-1999, was in Phnom Penh, where he recruited "silk grandmas", skilled weavers who had survived the war.
In 2002 he moved the project from the capital to Siem Reap, in order to avoid risks and other difficulties. Thereafter, the institute focused on improving quality and training the next generation of workers.
The core development plan, a five-year project called "Forest Wisdom", concentrates on achieving integrated pure natural silk production by 2007.
The final stage will consolidate this and move into replanting and the construction of self-sustaining silk workshops and a silk village making fabrics for clothing and interior decoration for sale in tourist spots like Angkor Wat.
Morimoto won a Rolex Enterprise Laureate Award in 2004, and the $100,000 prize money was spent on land and construction to achieve the final goal of the silk village. He has spent all his savings on the project. He exhibits Cambodian silk in Japan once a year to attract financial aid.
The aim of the model village is to help revitalise rural Cambodia. It will embrace all aspects of silk-manufacturing and have an art school, a weaving workshop, silkworm-feeding sheds, a dyeing plant, a mulberry plantation and outlet shops, covering 22 hectares in Chot Sam district, about 30 kilometres from Siem Reap town.
"The village will resurrect Cambodian textiles and pass on the tradition," he said.
To this end Morimoto encourages his workers to bring their children into the workshop so that they can absorb this aspect of the national heritage.
Ong Mary, 40, has been in the institute's workshop for several years and earns $40 a month. A friend encouraged her to go out to work.
"It's enough for food but no luxuries. I'd like $70-$100," she said, but conceded that this job was all she could get.
With six years' experience in the workshop, Tak Lang, 71, earns $80 a month. Before joining the institute she sold vegetables and sundry goods from a bicycle around her village, which brought in some $2 a day.
Chea Chanta, a 13-year old schoolgirl, accompanies her mother to the workshop every day and is being trained by her in silk design. Though not yet up to solo work, she has made rapid strides.
She spends her $10 a month on education, attending school in the afternoons. She wants to continue her studies and become a doctor or teacher.
"I'm glad to be taking some of the financial burden off my family, and it's an incentive to study and eventually get where I want to be," she said.
Morimoto emphasises that salaries depend on skill and length of service, largely ranging from $35 to $150 a month. The highest of $180 is drawn by a worker who has been with the institute for 10 years.
At one point the institute was so short of money it had to delay the payment of salaries. Morimoto encouraged his workers by assuring them that the problem would be solved by high quality.
"I said to them that better quality would increase sales and I would have the money to pay them," he said.
His Rolex Award has opened up the market for natural silk from Cambodia, and 80 per cent of his customers are now Japanese.
Thai silk has, as we know, made a name for itself; now it is the turn of Cambodian silk to emerge onto the global market, reviving a heritage lost for a century, and contribute to the healing process after 20 years of civil war.
Its unique designs and weaves have gone on display at the Smithsonian Freer Gallery in Washington DC, in Japan and at a silk shop in Siem Reap.
The money generated has breathed new life into 500 village weavers and their families, bringing them back from the brink of starvation.
The civil war took a heavy toll on many aspects of Cambodia's cultural heritage, ancient temples and silk-weaving among them, just as it cut a people off from the economic benefits of the world at large and brought a halt to technological development.
Kikuo Morimoto, 58, acting director of the Institute for Khmer Traditional Textiles, has devoted himself for more than a decade now to the revival of Cambodian silk.
Morimoto, who founded the institute, has spent years seeking out old skilled weavers from Phnom Penh to the ancient temple town of Siem Reap, where he has set up a workshop.
"Traditional Khmer textiles nearly died out during the 20-year civil war in Cambodia. I want not only to revive them but also to create a sustainable living for the people who make them," he said.
"I don't want them to produce silk for commercial purposes as in Thailand; I want Cambodians to concentrate on developing and reviving their culture and maintaining it for ever," he stressed, "I want them to make clothes for the heart rather than commercial wear."
Morimoto said a leading Thai silk shop had approached him to send it Cambodian silk but he had refused.
The institute has reached breakeven point, its sales revenue reaching US$20,000 (Bt769,000) a month, which covers expenditure.
Morimoto has long experience in the industry, having been an apprentice of the Japanese art of yuzen kimono silk-dyeing in his home town of Kyoto, then as a dyeing expert in a Thai textile factory, then running a silk business with his own brand, Bai Mai, in Bangkok. He has also lectured on textile design at the King Mongkut Institute of Technology Lat Krabang and at the silk-production development centre in Surin.
He learned natural dyeing techniques in Chiang Mai from Saengda Bannasith, the acknowledged master craftsman of Thai silk and a pioneer in producing pure natural silk.
Living in Thailand for 10 years, Morimoto gained much knowledge about Thai silk, whose 100-year history, he says, derives from the Cambodian silk tradition.
Initially he wanted to set up a sustainable silk-development project in San Kamphaeng district in Chiang Mai province, but rapid economic growth and the popularity of synthetic fibres prompted him to go to Cambodia, where people really needed help.
So in the 1990s he set off to realise his dream.
The institute had a three-phase plan focused on yellow silk yarn. Morimoto applied his knowledge of production and natural dyeing to the revival of Cambodian silk.
The first stage, 1995-1999, was in Phnom Penh, where he recruited "silk grandmas", skilled weavers who had survived the war.
In 2002 he moved the project from the capital to Siem Reap, in order to avoid risks and other difficulties. Thereafter, the institute focused on improving quality and training the next generation of workers.
The core development plan, a five-year project called "Forest Wisdom", concentrates on achieving integrated pure natural silk production by 2007.
The final stage will consolidate this and move into replanting and the construction of self-sustaining silk workshops and a silk village making fabrics for clothing and interior decoration for sale in tourist spots like Angkor Wat.
Morimoto won a Rolex Enterprise Laureate Award in 2004, and the $100,000 prize money was spent on land and construction to achieve the final goal of the silk village. He has spent all his savings on the project. He exhibits Cambodian silk in Japan once a year to attract financial aid.
The aim of the model village is to help revitalise rural Cambodia. It will embrace all aspects of silk-manufacturing and have an art school, a weaving workshop, silkworm-feeding sheds, a dyeing plant, a mulberry plantation and outlet shops, covering 22 hectares in Chot Sam district, about 30 kilometres from Siem Reap town.
"The village will resurrect Cambodian textiles and pass on the tradition," he said.
To this end Morimoto encourages his workers to bring their children into the workshop so that they can absorb this aspect of the national heritage.
Ong Mary, 40, has been in the institute's workshop for several years and earns $40 a month. A friend encouraged her to go out to work.
"It's enough for food but no luxuries. I'd like $70-$100," she said, but conceded that this job was all she could get.
With six years' experience in the workshop, Tak Lang, 71, earns $80 a month. Before joining the institute she sold vegetables and sundry goods from a bicycle around her village, which brought in some $2 a day.
Chea Chanta, a 13-year old schoolgirl, accompanies her mother to the workshop every day and is being trained by her in silk design. Though not yet up to solo work, she has made rapid strides.
She spends her $10 a month on education, attending school in the afternoons. She wants to continue her studies and become a doctor or teacher.
"I'm glad to be taking some of the financial burden off my family, and it's an incentive to study and eventually get where I want to be," she said.
Morimoto emphasises that salaries depend on skill and length of service, largely ranging from $35 to $150 a month. The highest of $180 is drawn by a worker who has been with the institute for 10 years.
At one point the institute was so short of money it had to delay the payment of salaries. Morimoto encouraged his workers by assuring them that the problem would be solved by high quality.
"I said to them that better quality would increase sales and I would have the money to pay them," he said.
His Rolex Award has opened up the market for natural silk from Cambodia, and 80 per cent of his customers are now Japanese.
3 comments:
Thank you for creating jobs for Cambodians...
I told you that not all Japanese people are bad people!ahah
Thank to Lon Nol for destroying Cambodian silk industry! My dad was a policeman during the Lon Nol time and he said Lon Nol was corrupted by the Thai and he send many of Cambodian with the know how in silk making to help the Thai start their silk industry and now Cambodian can kiss the Thai ass for joining the Thai on the silk route! Why do you think it is only the Japanese (KIKUO MORIMOTO) who is willing to share the knowlegde and to help Cambodian with the know how! You don't see the Thai want to help Cambodian with the know how!Do you really think the Thai really want Cambodian people to know anything? Of course not! The Thai always look at Cambodian people as different specie and a stupid one too.
Cambodian leaders especially Lon Nol, Pol Pot, and AH HUN SEN are like little children who can run a small country Cambodia
The question that I have for all these mother fukers is! How much smaller Cambodia must be for these bastard to manage Cambodia in the ritght way! I don't think all these mother fuckers don't deserve a country! They deserve not thing less than a rabbit hole! I like to see all these bastards to go down a rabbit hole someday!
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