Growing, spinning, and weaving flax themselves, the Mong women in the Hang Dong Flax Weaving Club (Ta Xua Commune, Son La) quietly but persistently maintain their traditional profession in the highlands, despite modest income, lack of raw materials, and a lack of stable output.
Linen plays an important role in the culture and spirituality of the Mong people.
The Hang Dong Linen Weaving Club was established in 2023 with 12 members and currently maintains regular activities with 6 core members. The sisters are all 27 years old or older, having grown up with the sound of their grandmothers and mothers' looms - where linen weaving is a job, a breath of life in their daily lives. The love for linen weaving has therefore become natural, like the cultural undercurrent that flows through many generations of Mong people. It is also that love that is the simple yet persistent goal of the sisters in the club, which is to preserve the traditional profession, while improving their livelihoods with their own hands.
Flax plants are dried by Ms. Thao Thi Dua.
From finding land, sowing seeds, fertilizing, harvesting flax, to drying, stripping, spinning and weaving, all are done by hand by women. It is both daily labor and the ingenuity, diligence, patience, and belief and pride in the culture of Mong women.
After completion, each meter of linen is sold for 150,000 - 200,000 VND. Working steadily, each month the women can earn about 3 million VND/person. The income is modest but has helped them continue to maintain and preserve the traditional linen weaving profession in the precarious highlands.
The current difficulty for members is the lack of stable raw material areas. The flax cultivation requires self-sufficiency, and ash fertilizer is mainly used from each household. In addition, the output of the products is mainly sold directly to local people or through social networks. Meanwhile, the small market is also competing with flax products from other localities, making the output even more precarious.
Despite their modest income, the women in the Hang Dong Linen Weaving Club still persist in maintaining their traditional profession.
Beyond its economic value, the Club is both a place to "keep linen" and "keep love". Here, women can both preserve their traditional profession and share work, farming stories, family stories, and support each other in daily life. On holidays such as March 8, October 20, Independence Day, etc., the Club becomes a connecting space, a place where women can chat, eat, and have fun together. At the end of the year, the Club often gives a portion of linen to members so that they can sew bags, make household items, or store and give to relatives, especially families with elderly people. Because for the Mong people, linen is not just for wearing, it is an indispensable item in spiritual life.
"The Mong people believe that when the elderly, parents, or relatives die, they must have linen to make shirts, socks, shoes, etc. to send them off to the other world. Linen must be used so that the deceased can be at ease and cool," said Ms. Lu Thi Song, a club member.
The future of the club still faces many difficulties when there is no fixed raw material area, while the secondary job of many women is making tea, which is currently falling in price, and income is unstable. Ms. Thao Thi Dua - Head of the Hang Dong Linen Weaving Club expressed: We hope to be supported to develop and find a stable output for our products. Despite the difficulties, for us, linen is not only a garment material but also a deeply attached part of the cultural and spiritual life of the Mong people that needs to be preserved.
Ms. Mua Thi Thay - President of Ta Xua Commune Women's Union
Sharing the same concern when witnessing the women in the Hang Dong linen weaving club persevering and maintaining their profession, Ms. Mua Thi Thay - President of the Women's Union of Ta Xua commune - said: "In the coming time, the Women's Union of the commune will proactively coordinate with the Hang Dong village government to call for socialization and mobilize more resources to support the women in the club. The goal is to both preserve and promote the traditional linen weaving profession and help women improve their skills, take advantage of technology to promote products, expand the consumption market, thereby improving the income and life of women."
In this remote area, linen weaving is not simply a craft but a strong bond connecting people to their cultural roots. Linen cloth is present in every lifestyle and custom as an inseparable part of the Mong people's life, as a reminder that preserving linen means preserving the soul and identity of the community.