Mac Nua - the distant past

At noon, I touched a few mac núa roots, feeling the silence spread deep into my heart. They seemed lost in the middle of a street frontage worth tens of billions of dong in the city. The vast plots of mac núa in the past have now receded into the past, taking with them the golden age of mac núa. But in fact, mac núa has no meaning of its own. It is the “soul” of the legendary “silk queen” of My A. Without My A, it is just a wild tree by the roadside. On the contrary, without mac núa, My A is just a piece of silk, completely lacking the unique features that have been passed down.

According to many documents, My A silk was once famous, the pride of Tan Chau silk land (An Giang). The heyday of this high-class fabric was in the 1950s and 1960s, when only ladies from wealthy families could afford to buy My A silk to make ao dai. My A silk was not only famous throughout the six provinces of the South, but was also exported to Cambodia, Laos...

At that time, almost every house in Tan Chau made My A silk. Later, My A silk was successfully "revived" by famous designers using it in many collections of straight-cut dresses, A-line dresses, vests, ao dai, evening dresses and wedding dresses... reviving the My A silk brand, bringing the soul of the countryside out of the country once again.

The weaving and dyeing process is extremely complicated, passed down from generation to generation, woven from 100% silk using the satin 8 weaving method and dyed from mac núa fruit. Each row (25m) requires up to 90kg of mac núa fruit. The most popular mac núa fruit is the moderately mature type, with a slightly yellowish green color. A darker yellow color will have less latex. Dyeing mac núa is extremely laborious, the processes have been summarized from hundreds of years ago, by the "black hands" who are experienced in the profession.

Mac Nua is ground into powder, sifted carefully, mixed with water, forming a thick latex, the color gradually changes from yellow to black. The fabric is dyed, dried, beaten, dyed... continuously for at least 1-2 months to produce the finished Mac Nua dyed fabric. Each meter of fabric is soaked with the sun and wind, the salty human effort, containing the quintessence of the homeland, becoming a masterpiece that lasts over time.

Despite the few off-season fruits on the branches

Ms. Le Thi Kieu Hanh (born in 1958, residing in Long Hung hamlet, Long Chau ward, Tan Chau town) left Long Khanh weaving village (Hong Ngu district, Dong Thap) and followed her husband's fate to return to Tan Chau more than 40 years ago. During those years, her husband's grandfather's My A silk weaving workshop was passed down to her father-in-law, and then it was her turn to take over. The golden age of My A silk can only be described as the "black hand village".

Every house has a workshop, everyone is engaged in weaving and dyeing. Silk is closely tied to their lives, to their hands, black from the palms up to the elbows. Having stopped dyeing for decades, her arms still bear the distinctive color. Through many ups and downs, her Hong Ngoc establishment has persisted until now, becoming a destination for tourists from near and far, a rare place where My A silk is still preserved for visitors to experience touching every inch of mysterious silk.

Luxurious and expensive American silk, dyed from moxa

They still have many ideas to maintain and develop the My A brand. But she herself does not know how long she can stick with the profession, when the output for the product is wide open, but the input is frugal and meager. The Mac Nua trees are now scattered, traders look for them to pick, it is up to chance. Not to mention the changing weather, the hot sun breaks the natural law, by August (lunar calendar) the Mac Nua only has a few sad fruits, no longer the scene of the Mac Nua bearing fruit from June. The demand is 10, but the supply is only 1-2, so the output of My A Mac Nua is also limited.

“When I was young, my husband’s family had several plots of land, where the mac núa grew all over the side of the house, behind the porch, and we could pick them freely. Now, there are only a few trees here and there, and sometimes there are only a few fruits. Traders go to the Cambodian border to buy them, traveling all over the place to get enough mac núa for dyeing. It’s easy to understand, the value of mac núa is very low, and the land is getting more expensive every day. Who has the time to let mac núa grow so wastefully!” - Ms. Hanh regrets.

It's funny, it seems that Mac Nua was born just to dedicate all its affection to My A silk. A wild plant, almost of no economic value, with no other uses, but for a hundred years marked an outstanding value of the silk land. My A silk has the characteristic of being warm in winter, cool in summer. Lam always has one shiny side and one matte side. The surface of Lam is smooth, shiny black, does not fade over time, and even becomes shinier with longer use. People have not found any other type with as many unique characteristics as the sap of Mac Nua fruit: it is a natural adhesive, has no color fixing agent but still adheres to the shiny black color of the fabric. Many researchers have tried hard to find a replacement material for Mac Nua, but the results are not promising.

That day, Mr. Tran Minh Trung (Ms. Hanh’s son) took us to the land behind the house, where they carefully planted 10 Mac Nua trees. It sounds like a lot, but when the season comes, the fruit can only be picked for a few kilos, which is not worth it! However, thinking about the scene where this land will be sold, they feel regretful. Surely in the future, the Mac Nua trees will be precariously moved again, leaving behind silent marks like the sighs of a distant time. Mac Nua has been abandoned by people for many years, and then people have been turned away by Mac Nua…

Article and photos: GIA KHANH - An Giang newspaper