Take a bowl and put cotton threads and cooked rice in it, pour water over it and knead everything well together. The threads are dried for a day and the small pieces of rice are removed with a comb made from the coconut husk. And look here: a durable cotton thread with which a fabric called Ang Sila can be woven.
What: never heard of it? That is not surprising because until six months ago, a 93-year-old woman in Ban Puek (Chon Buri) was the only one who mastered the more than 100-year-old technique. But luckily she was able to pass on her knowledge to some women from her village, so that the process is not lost.
Grandmother Nguan Sermsri learned the technique as a 12-year-old girl from her mother. Her family wove Ang Sila when the rice planting and harvesting was over. The villagers did not grow cotton themselves, but bought the yarn at a local market for dyeing and weaving. Popular colors were white, light and dark red, deep purple like the flowers of the eggplant, blue, yellow like betel and yellow like champak flowers.
There was no specific motif or pattern in the past. Later, the villagers adopted certain motifs from outsiders and grandmother Nguan also created some motifs herself. She borrowed one motif from a pattern on the king's trousers that he wore when visiting Chon Buri. She also says it phikul worasa (bullet wood flowers) motif, which had been taught to villagers by Queen Savang Vadhana, the wife of King Chulalongkorm, who regularly stayed in Si Ratcha.
Malin Inthachote, leader of the Ban Puek Women's Group, whose five members learned the technique from grandmother Nguan, says Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn recognized this special motif when she was presented with a cloth by Ang Sila during a visit to Savang Vadhana earlier this year. Memorial Hospital. The princess encouraged the villagers to revive and preserve the weaving technique.
During WWII, grandmother Nguan was forced to stop weaving because there were no cotton threads, but after the war she picked up thread again. To earn extra money, she hired some women to weave Ang Sila and sell the woven fabrics in local markets. The price gradually increased from 28 to 30 to 130 baht per piece of 3 meters. When she was 70, she stopped.
Grandmother Nguan has two sons and three grandchildren, but none of them are interested in weaving. So the five women of the women's group came at the right time. One of them, now deceased, taught a number of local women and students the weaving technique, so there is a good chance that Ang Sila will continue to exist.
'I would be sad if there was no more weaving, because I like weaving,' says grandmother Nguan. “In the past, all the families in this village used to weave textiles for use as pha khao ma (loincloth), sarongs and shirts. '
Malin agrees: every woman in Ban Puek used to weave. Most did not have looms and wove between two pillars under their wooden houses. Later came the first still primitive looms. The women's group now has six looms. The five women received lessons from grandmother Nguan for six months. Fabrics woven by her served as an example.
When they have fully mastered the technique, they want to start selling fabrics and clothing. Now if all officials in Chon Buri wore an Ang Sila shirt once a week, as they believe, it should certainly work.
(Source: bangkok mail, July 16, 2013)
I was once in an OTOP village called Ang Sila in Chonburi. Is there any connection between this lady and the village with this name?
@ Jan The tambon where Nguan lives is called Ban Puek (indeed in Chonburi province). I do not come across the term OTOP (One Tambon One Product) in the article, but it could very well be that Ang Sila is included in the OTOP range. Perhaps Ang Sila is also the nickname of Ban Puek.
Thank you, Dick. Did a quick search. I remember when Ang Sila was practically on the coast. And indeed. It is located about 5 km north of Ban Puek. Probably both villages are from the same Tambon. The question remains whether the village is named after the material or vice versa. An interesting detail is that they are both old. Ang Sila advertises itself as a very old village on flags and banners when I visited it 3 years ago on the Sunday talad with of course many Otop products. The village is also known for its stone mortars.