Off the Cuff / My Other Journal

Silk or is this another useless fact?

Yesterday, I received a silk scarf as a present, which has been making me think about silk. Never mind if talk back and forth, and even digress, as I usually do, but I do love my scarf and I appreciate the fact that someone so special gave it to me.

"Give us the luxuries of life, and we shall dispense with its necessities."

I guess there are some facts attached to the silkworm's silk and cocoon, and they may be important enough to ponder about; although, I may go zigzag on the subject.

Silk is more resilient than linen, cotton or rayon, wrinkles little, presses easily and holds its shape. Although I find some blouses to wrinkle more easily, I still love the fabric, especially the feel of silk.

Yet, just for the feel of something is it worth all the trouble and the pain? Is it worth it to kill the silk larvae in their cocoons? Luckily, modern science has come up with alternate ways of giving that silky feeling to artificial textiles. Maybe the scientists took pity on the silk worms, because producing a yard of silk cloth takes 3,000 silk cocoons.

And since I am mentioning thousands, more than 5,000 years ago, the Chinese discovered how to make silk from silkworm cocoons. For about 3,000 years, the Chinese kept this discovery a secret. Were they keeping the secret from other nations or lower castes?

Because poor people could not afford real silk, they tried to make other cloth look silky. Women would beat on cotton with sticks to soften the fibers. Next, they rubbed it against a big stone to make it shiny. The shiny cotton was called "chintz." Because chintz was a cheaper copy of silk, calling something "chintzy" means it is cheap and not of good quality.”

Some people kept a secret for 3000 years? That is so unbelievable. Probably, they had never heard of industrial spies. At least, we are ahead of them now in the spying business.

As to the beaten cotton, I guess anything that gets beaten on so much either softens and shines or falls apart. Instead of giving that cotton a weird name like chintz, shouldn’t we be revering it? After all, it manages to stay alive after all that abuse.

Also, about chintz being a cheaper copy of silk, why think it a copy? Chintz is an original. It is beaten yet respectable cotton whereas pure silk is worm spit.

There should be no comparison between the two.

Oh, anyway...I still love my silk scarf.

As to being chintzy, who in this world hasn’t been accused of being that? Don’t we all get beaten on one way or the other, no matter what our original material is?