Silk Island in Phnom Penh : From Beautiful Caterpillar to Silk Threads 🧵 🇰🇭🇰🇭

Today I went to visit “Silk Island” or “Koh Dach in Khmer.
from city, we had to take ferry to cross the river. there is community of making silk there.
here , we still make silk from hand and scratch.
first , caterpillars take 8 hours for reproduction. then egg. then silk worm. they feed mulberry leaves. they spit to became cocoon. fiber outside and inside silk worm. here we also eat cooked silk worm. if we keep that, sooner they will become caterpillar again.
to get silk, we boil cocoon with silkworm inside . then use mulberry leave to stick thread one by one. to add color, either from fruit , tree . sometimes we use chemical. then the weaving part. that’s complicated process . they need to tie into pattern then weaving 10 hours per day.
it’s cruel to kill silkworm but it turn out to something beautiful and give jobs to this community. I hope it’s good sacrifice for them.
it takes a lot of effort and care. it’s been pass down from generation . so silk price is expensive but worth this.