%%Hà Ðông is the provincial capital of Hà Tây. More than three decades ago, the Hà Ðông silk dress conjured up an image of my faraway home town. Now, Hà Ðông is just one hour's flight plus another fifteen minutes by road from Thành Ph? H? Chí Minh, and you are once again transported to one of the oldest and most famous silk producing villages of La Ca, La Khe, Van Phuc, Mo on the bank of Nhuê River. Yet another 40 minutes to cross Ðáy River and you are in Bung Xa (or Phung Xa), the place known for 'mulberry' silk. My concern was to find out whether Hà Ðông silk was still as soft and pure as it used to be? My curiosity took me across to the silk producers, the silk weavers and the makers of this fabulous silk. A long time ago, Hà Ðông silk was famous because it brought charm to the women of Tonkin, from their undergarments to the most expensive dresses they wore. Nowadays, silk is still a luxury that not everyone can afford. Indeed, silk garments, especially fashion garments or custom-made garments in any pure fibre, give the wearer a special style in a crowd. Silk products are now available for all ages and sexes. Hà Ðông silk is no more displayed in small towns, but has found its way into the most elegant shops in cities. It has made a real come-back. However, all does not augur well for the silk weavers of Hà Ðông. In place of silk production on the old hand looms, the village of Bung Xa has shifted to towel weaving on modern looms. Has the famous Mulberry Silk of Bung Xa become a thing of the past? A large area of mulberry farming along Ðáy and Nhuê rivers has been destroyed. There is no more song from the birds at nights in the mulberry bushes of the romantic Ung Hoà - M? Ð?c silk zone these days. While silk production in Hà Ðông has not completely disappeared, the low productivity of the ancient methods can no longer give producers sufficient earnings to meet modern day needs. Consequently, they have had to shift to other kinds of production. Silk materials from Son Dong, Dan Phuong, Bao Loc etc. or even synthetic silk have replaced the old natural fibre from Hà Ðông. It is now quite difficult to find a piece of pure Hà Ðông silk made out of cocoons taken from the mulberry fields. The old method of 'one basket of cocoons and five baskets of mulberry leaves' to ensure good silk quality plus the skilled workers endowed with special talents to weave this fabric had amazed and impressed participants at the Marseilles Trade Fairs in France in the early 20th century. The raw and pure silk then had made its mark along with the long famous silk from China and Japan. I came back to V?n Phúc, a large village on the bank of Nhuê River where silk production employs thousands of workers. The old ones have left the looms to their children in order to focus on caring for their gardens and households. But for them, the musical sounds of the looms are still present in the house. The equipments, no more hand looms but new modern machines, sing the song of life relentlessly for the people of V?n Phúc. There was a time when silk production in V?n Phúc was at its peak. In the early years of the 20th century, V?n Phúc silk not only occupied the domestic markets but also found its way to neighbouring countries like Cambodia, Laos and Thailand. Nguyen Tan Dat, one of the oldest workers left told me that by the 1930s, the hand looms in V?n Phúc produced about 1 million metres of silk per year. But this volume could not be sustained for long. Just like the history of the Vi?t people, silk production in the village went through numerous ups and downs. The wars badly affected the business despite a short resurgence in the 1960s. During that time, the production went up to 950 thousand metres a year. Then, there was war again and the production went down once more. After 1975, there was some improvement, the main customers being importers from Eastern Europe who offered small contracts. The post-war domestic market was still unable to consume such a luxury. However, as the Eastern European markets experienced a sharp drop in the 1980s, a large number of contracts were terminated and the industry faced total bankruptcy. Fortunately, in November 1991, when silk from V?n Phúc participated in the Quang Trung Trade Fair in Thành Ph? H? Chí Minh, it got sudden and surprising recognition. The sample products exhibited there were sold out immediately. As more outlets were found, production in the village was stepped up. Production went up rapidly from 400,000m in 1992 to 600,000m in 1993 and 700,000 in 1994. However, there was also harsh competition from other silk producers. Although it has been famous for quite a long time, the Hà Ðông-V?n Phúc silk is now having to compete with smuggled products from Thailand and China which are cheaper but more fashionable and suit the tastes and standards of present day consumers. One disadvantage of the V?n Phúc silk is that it gets easily wrinkled, causing certain difficulties to garment manufacturers and designers. So, they find it difficult to compete with products from the silk centres of B?o L?c and Nam Ð?nh who use new materials and technology. To cope with this situation, V?n Phúc needs to upgrade its technology and know-how. As a result, disclosed the Director-General of the V?n Phúc Silk Export Corporation, the cost of the silk will go up to VND 50,000/m which is too high compared with the present cost of silk production in V?n Phúc: VND 17,000-18,000/m for normal silk and VND 21,000-22,000/m for printed silk. This will make it difficult for the market to accept the products. Last but not the least is the fact that the price of domestic silk is on the rise while imported materials are subject to 10% duty. This again causes problems for the producers. At the moment, there are approximately 200 families with thousands of workers in V?n Phúc. Each family has at least 2-3 looms, many have up to 6 or 7 . Improved designs of imported looms from Hong Kong, China, Japan, South-Korea etc. enable weavers to produce silk in large widths. They have also invested in French technology and know-how as well as in Italian advanced silk-yarn winding machines. Despite all these, my trip to this village in late 1995 revealed a decline in the production. Workers' income had dropped rapidly from VND 300,000/month in 1994 to about VND 200,000/month in 1995. Deep down, however, I still remember the V?n Phúc that was once full of the sounds of clicking shuttles, spinning wheels and the raw smell of the newly bleached silk. In the courtyard of someone's house, one could find the defective pieces of hand-made silk as proof of human error and craftsmanship. My memories bring back to me the image of an old overseas Vietnamese woman living in France. She had left the country over 40 years ago and had always kept in the bottom of her dressing table a piece of V?n Phúc silk she bought some decades ago. At times, she would take it out with the intention of making it into a dress, but the fear of destroying it prevented her from doing so. On her trip home 3 years ago, she brought it with her as part of her fond remembrances of the country that she was born in. For her, the silk from Hà Ðông then was not just silk, it was something pure and precious that she had cherished deep in her heart. As I return to the present, I remind myself of the recent fashion shows by Minh H?nh Fashion House (Thành Ph? H? Chí Minh) and Hoang Khai, the fashion designer (Hà N?i). Our models, the first and second runners-up in various beauty contests, have worn the silk products created by these houses. It can well be said that the shows were 100% Vietnamese and were not less interesting and exciting. Vietnamese girls should remember Nguy?n Sa's poems: 'Under the heat of Saigon I felt this coolness, When I saw you in Hà Ðông silk' (VNS)