A Luang Prabang Love Story*

Hmong Flower Cloth, or Story Cloth, 

being sold at the Luang Prabang Airport 

and now mine

Hmong teacher Mai at Ock Pop Tok

Me & Tony at the Moon Love Batik workshop

Although I might have not seen anything outside of the touristic Luang Prabang in Laos, I really enjoyed my two visits here. I will not describe everything I saw and done, will focus on the textile-part of my journey, which is as expected the largest part. Went to Luang Prabang first with the ATTS 9 Pre-Symposium Study Trip, and after the symposium with my friends Klaus Rink & Tony Sugiarta (of aNERDgallery).

Our Pre-tour started in Vientiane in Laos on 31 October. After a short flight from Bangkok, I landed in the afternoon where we first checked in the massive Landmark hotel. The hotel that was also the venue for the symposiums of ATTS 9 & 8th IASSRT. After check-in & a quick change we headed to the Lao Handicraft Festival.

The Lao Handicraft Festival is a yearly event in Vientiane where all craftspeople gather to show, demonstrate & sell their goods. Of course, or apparently, half of it is textiles. Most is woven, made out of silk, but some cotton too. Some Hmong batik pieces here and there. Most craftspeople & resellers are from Laos, but there were also sellers of Pineapple fibre from the Philippines. 

The Hmong Batik I had to have

At the first booth I saw of Véo I spotted a 6 meter long handdrawn batik dyed in Indigo & embroidered with yellow silk. I didn’t buy it at first, what to do with so many meters, but it was stuck in my mind. I asked my friend Klaus to get it for me the last day of the festival & lucky me it was still there. 

The Katu weaver showing me how to wear her scarf

The next thing caught my eye were these Katu weavers. One proudly explained in English the work was all done by themselves. It is a weaving with a loom that is put on tension with the feet. Next to motifs in cotton, they weave in little white beads. The one speaking English made abstract patterns. The other one animals like elephants. I bought a natural dyed scarf with in little white beads butterflies. Kindly they showed me how to wear it, and maker posed wearing it.

Bats & other animal by the ethnic group Akha Nuqui

Asked if I could take a picture

Next booth was one filled with stuffed animals, in colourful fabrics embroidered with details. Holding a bat, another bat was given to me by this woman dressed sooo absolutly stunning. A Akha Nuqui woman who makes them. They sold traditional pieces too. Later I spotted their animals in every shop!

Dance during Lao Handicraft fair depicting Silk Weaving

Naga designs Fashionshow

After the shopping, we got to see a fashionshow. It opened with a dance displaying silk weaving. The fashionshow was great & everyone was dressed beautiful in the audience too. After traditional modernized wear, ambassadors & their familymembers showed ‘naga’ inspired silk fashion. 

UNESCO has inscribed Lao traditional Naga motif weaving as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in February 2024. Women across Laos weave Naga designs onto their traditional skirts for protection and strength. The snake-like mythical beings Naga in Lao folklore are generally benevolent and believed to protect humans from illness, hunger, and spirits, but when angered, they unleash floods, storms, and disasters. 

Linda McIntosh showing us a 'ladder cloth'

Elephants in the middle

Old Hmong Baby carrier / or cover

The next day we left for Luang Prabang. Got to see so many amazing textiles, meet craftswomen, hang out with fellow symposium go-ers, have boat rides and try local Lao food.

Arriving in Luang Prabang we took a boatride to visit Linda McIntosh, Lao textile researcher & organizer of the symposium ATTS 9 symposium. She prepared for us a selection of her collected pieces. Especially the ‘ladders to heaven’ long woven cloth struck something with me. These ‘ladders’ are either hung outside on the house or wrapped around the poles of the bed. They function as a divide between our world & the spirit world. On it are all kinds of animals, mystical and actual, to guide the dead to the next world.

Second day we visited many places. First Uxo Lao, a museum on the many bombs that were dropped in Laos. Such a sad sad history that still causes many issues till this day. In the giftshop little objects are sold made of the bomb material that has been neutralized. Bought a little buffalo/karbouw. I think such a simple, effective thing, turning something ugly into something beautiful. 

Weaving at the Uxo Loa Museum

Veo welcoming us at  Ban Sang Khong during the Pre-trip

Weaver at work at the Mae On Living Museum

Next stop was Ban Sang Khong, a village where mulberry paper is made & silk weaving. Set up for us was a little fair with demonstrations of the different crafts including the making of the flower offerings. I got to sit with the two making. Anna was placing dried flowers onto a base made from the stam of a banana plant. With banana leaves the edges are decorated. 

Across the street is the Mae On Living Museum. Natural dye, silk spinning & weaving is demonstrated. There is a small museum and a shop full of gorgeous textiles. Across the street again, we had lunch at the newly created Tea House.

Weaver at work at Simone Handicraft

Looms at Patta textile gallery

Returned here on Sunday 10 November after the symposium. Run into Linda & owner Veo. We had a lunch together and shared our shared symposium experience & stories from the life of a researcher. It is really wonderful to get to know Linda and her textile colleagues a little better. 

After the lunch, that was 10 out of 10 again (fresh vegetables, especially the pumpkin & winged beans), we walk through the streets. Veo explained the weaving place of her mother Mae On, the other weavers & mulberry paper making were already in the street. It grew naturally in what it is now, with stores along the street. Very nice to re-visit and see the other stores. It was pretty quiet on Sunday and not everywhere makers were at work, which I found comforting actually.

I will dedicate another post to my stay in Vientiane & the symposiums. So let me continue on my second stay in Luang Prabang. 

On 7 November we took a train to Luang Prabang. In two hours, through an amazing landscape & many tunnels, we arrived. The trainstations are a bit outside of the cities, but still more convenient than taking a plane.  

We walked around the historic city center. In between two rivers, this little part of Luang Prabang is a mixture of tourist village and tempels. The houses that are turned into guesthouses, fancy stores, bars & restaurants look like how New Orleans looks in tv-shows, with wooden balconies and shutters. Many of the organisations that work with textile craftspeople have a store here: Ock Pop tok, TAEC, She Works & Passa Paa. Of course we visited all.

As you can imagine the tourist market in Luang Prabang is big. To my surprise by far most stores sell handmade, quality products and in most cases even refer to the actual makers, by name or as community. Inspiring to see and something I will take with me in my further work with batikmakers on Java. 

Label at She Works

Label at Ock Pop Tok

On Friday 8 November, I booked my first Hmong Batikworkshop in the afternoon at Ock Pop Tok. 

We had dinner here during the pre-trip and the view at the location is already amazing. Their work with craftspeople and sharing of crafts is really inspiring. 

Ock Pop Tok (meaning “East Meets West” in Lao) was founded in 2000 by Englishwoman Joanna (Jo) Smith and Laotian Veomanee (Veo) Douangdala, Ock Pop Tok is an artisan social enterprise based in Luang Prabang, Laos. Over the years they have grown from a small shop selling only a few designs, to becoming one of the most important textile and artisanal institutions in all of Laos and South East Asia. Ock Pop Tok is now a team of over 90 employees. 

Our teacher was Hmong Batik Master Mai Lao as she was introduced by the translator Ni. Both are working shortly at Ock Pop Tok. Mai is the daughter-in-law of Mae Thao Zuzong, the recently pensioned Hmong Batik Master active there. 

Both are part of the Hmong Der, or White Hmong. Traditionally mothers learn their daughters to make embroidery. Batik is not part of this, but often learned later, or from the Mong Njau or Green Hmong.

The batik by the Hmong is actually called ‘Paj Ntaub nraj ciab’. Paj stands for flower & Ntaub for fabric/cloth. Also the embroidered cloths are called Paj Ntaub. Nraj means to draw and Ciab means wax. Ciab cab means beewax.  The name Batik is now used everywhere, but it is a pity really since the Hmong have their own name for this technique, their tradition, textile, motifs and tools. 

The tool, the waxpen, is an interesting and new experience. The way it is hold/used really makes it useful for drawing lines & geometric forms. The pen is hold towards you and you pull it with a stretched arm. The three little copper plates in a triangle shape are pushed pretty hard onto the fabric. The fabric being woven hemp, which is pretty rough in texture. The wax itself is very dark of colour, laying mostly on top of the fabric. It doesn’t go through as on cotton. The design is only drawn on one side. The wax was heated on coals in a very small pan. It was moved of and on the heat source to keep the wax the right temperature.  When the pen is dipped in, it can draw about 30 cm before running out. 

The ease Mai had with the tool, didn’t come natural for me. Finally knowing how to correctly hold the canting, Javanese waxpen, this felt for me if I was holding it upside down & back worths, and my brain couldn’t get it the first few times. 

Master Mai made outlines and little starter lines. Getting straight lines is never a skill I had and felt a little bad for making such crooked lines. Because the wax doesn’t seep into the cloth like with cotton, mistakes can actually be removed, up to a point. By pressing hard with the back of the waxpen to the cloth and getting the wax to attache to the pen, it can be taken off. Master Mai removed some of my lines and make me do them again. 

After all the lines were made, we made little squares within the double lines. In these little squares we made two motifs. The oblique lines to create the pompkin seeds. In the other we put three lines, two big & one small, to make cucumber seeds. Looks in two rows a bit like Kawung which might be based on the fruit of a Sugar Palm, so a nice overlap. 

After the seeds we got to fill in the middle. We got to choose from an example with Betel leaves, a butterfly or Temple roof. Went with the butterfly. Master Mai “draw” the design by pushing a kind of blunt knife into the cloth to create a grid. The first corner she draw. To draw this part, the waxpen is hold as a pencil. First you think, ohh more easy, but to draw an unfamiliar design with a new tool was really hard. My spirals were not spiraling, but I was after 3,5 hour. Tried my best, but with the tiny spirals I broke down. Just couldn’t get it done. Master Mai helped me out. 

At the end we got to dip our piece in Indigo. Normally it needs several dips to became dark, so we only have a light blue. Master Mai was not too happy, I figure the really dark blue makes in Hmong. But the light blue still shows the patterns in white nicely and it is more convenient to bring it a long on my journey. 

Re-dipping the cloth to make sure the Indigo seeped into the hemp

Look at that view!

Master Mai showing the finished Batik

I asked, can you pose with it, it is more your work then mine

Next day on Saturday 9 November, Tony & I went for another Hmong Batik Workshop at Moon Love Batik. Moon Love Batik had a booth during the symposium and I tried to chat with Batik teacher & maker Mee Cha a little bit. 

Mee has been teaching Batik for about a year and only recently learned how to make Hmong Batik herself. We would not have know this if she didn’t tell us. As Mai at Ock Pop Tok, Mee is also White Hmong and did learn embroidery from her mother. She started learning to make batik to help with the Moon Love Batik place. It opened two years ago and is run by two brother. One of the brother was running the booth  in Vientiane, the other we met in Luang Prabang. He first did the explanation, but gave Mee more room after a while. We asked a lot of questions, about the traditional name, the motifs, the location & Mee's own work. I joked with all our question, it is a workshop for us and an interview for you.

Mee learned in 6 months from a Master. She showed me a cloth by her teacher still in wax. It had very fine lines, I for sure, have not been able to draw. 

Mee makes traditional designs mostly, but makes also free work. She was recently commissioned by Linda McIntosh to make a work about the bombings occurring in Lao FDR during the Indochina war and

their destruction. After the wars end, populace returned to agriculture, their main occupation, but they are not safe carrying out this activity since UXOs continue to maim and kill until today.

The first cloth was made after photographs of planes dropping bombs.  Mee actually interviewed older generation, widows who lost their husbands in UXO accidents. 

Hmong story cloths are often referred to as a form of Paj Ntaub but are aesthetically unique in the Hmong tradition in that they strongly feature elements of figurative representation and fragments of text (often in English) as well as more traditional geometric motifs and abstract symbolism. These distinct and creative embroideries are designed to present a legible narrative and the earliest examples tended to focus on refugee life, military occupation, and forced migration from Laos. Other examples depict popular Hmong folktales, creation stories, and historical accounts of traditional Hmong life and culture.

~ from Wikipedia

Since then Mee also created another piece about the Hmong and their history Watch the making of here.

I think the tradition of the Hmong to make Story Cloths is so fascinating and it is wonderful to see a new generation following in this tradition and bringing it into the Artworld. 

At Moon Love Batik the waxpen tool is a little bigger, 

specifically commissioned for the workshops &

 the wax is heated in an electric stove

Mee had a Javanese canting in between her own waxpens and asked us how it work. 

I showed her and she sit next to us trying it out

The cloth was dipped 5 times in Indigo to create a very dark blue. 

It is all done by the boss after the workshops and the wax is removed. 

I picked it up in the afternoon

Hmong skirts at TAEC

In the afternoon after our workshop we visited TAEC.

The Traditional Arts and Ethnology Centre (TAEC) ids a learning centre located Luang Prabang. Started in 2006 as a museum, and fair-trade handicraft shops directly linked with artisan communities. TAEC’s work includes community research, advocacy for artisan IP rights, and heritage training. 

TAEC has next to their permanent exhibition, a great temporary exhibition ‘Claiming Inspiration’.

In September I joined a zoom hosted by ThreadsWritten in which Monica Boța-Moisin of Cultural Intellectual Property Rights Initiative® (CIPRI) who co-created this exhibition shared a little more on it. The base, or the reason for this exhibition were the designs of the Oma ethnic group of Laos that had been misappropriated by a fashion brand, a practice becoming common worldwide. Monica who with her organisation fights this battle for multiple ethnic groups already worked with TAEC to protect Oma for the the future. With the database they creating, they hope to make a format that can work for other groups to insure fashion brands can no longer steal and simple claim inspiration. 

Exhibition ‘Claiming Inspiration’at TAEC

In the exhibition this is further explained: 

The goal of better protections for traditional cultural expressions is not to close off traditional designs from contemporary influence or to mandate that inspiration can only be sought within one's own culture. It is to ensure that the cultural foundation of traditional expressions can thrive, contributing to creativity for generations to come.

However, international law has so far been ambiguous about rights to creative knowledge and work that is traditional and shared by a community and culture in the developing world. It is not uncommon for designers and brands to harvest motifs, materials, and ideas freely from people that lack the resources to have their custodianship recognised. Because of this, the Cultural Intellectual Property Rights Initiative® (CIPRI) coined the

3 Cs' Rule to guide any use of traditional knowledge:

*   CONSENT of the craftsperson or community

*   CREDIT given to the source of inspiration

*   COMPENSATION for use of the traditional cultural expressions

In the exhibition the claimed inspiration source, aka the traditional dress is shown together with the fashion brand product printed in a glossy magazine format. A clever and effecting way to show how silly these brands are with think these communities will either not know or notice their heritage is being used. This exhibition should be traveling as a pop-up in fashionmuseums! Especially in Europe to show this is not okay and brands, let's say people should really do better.

Exhibition ‘Claiming Inspiration’at TAEC

On Sunday after our stroll around Ban Sang Khong, we went to The Weaving Sisters. The sisters had a booth and demonstration during the symposium in Vientiane. They are part of the Katu weavers community and make scarfs, bigger cloths, clothing and accessories with their weaving skills. In their little hidden shop and workshop space, we found their niece (or cousin) Dommai weaving a bigger piece without beads but with intricate small patterns. She explained that the sisters were not back yet, but invited us to ask her anything, while she continued with her weaving. 

In the space was an amazing piece with multicoloured beads in the middle and small animals along the edges woven in; a pair of duck, elephants with babies, tigers, frogs and much more. I later got through Instagram from the one of the sisters the message that this was made by their aunt and was very dear to them. I totally understand it is a beautiful made piece and feels powerful for sure.

Dommai weaving at The Weaving Sisters

At The Weaving Sisters, 

made by their aunt

On my last morning in Luang Prabang on Tuesday 12 November I did some last minute souvenir shopping. On Saturday after visiting the National Museum the exit leads to a street with little stalls, exit through the giftshop. In between the elephant pants, machine woven sarongs and dried fruit was a woman actually embroidering. In front of her pouches and bags with the colourful Hmong flower cloth images. These products are actually her (and probably more women like her) handwork and you see them in every other store. She showed me she was now making the embroidery for the aprons, that she does not sell herself. I asked if I could photograph her with her work. Couldn't choose so bought several, might keep all, might gift some. She was making little fish too and let me pick one. 

Handmade souvenirs in Luang Prabang

Headed extra early to the airport, because I needed to check out the Hmong Story cloths there. I saw them during our return fro the Pre-Trip. The stores at the airport are filled with actually handmade things, next to not so much handmade things. But the seller explained the profit does go to the actual makers. The story cloth I really wanted turned out to be a full size blanket. She kindly unfolded the smaller pieces for me. The smaller one show more happy stories as you will of the village lives and with actually stories with English texts. I choose one that showed three ethnic groups living in Laos. I think I still have to return one day to Luang Prabang to get me the bigger piece.

Hmong Story Cloths at the airport

*book-title I bought in Bangkok at River Books but haven’t had time to read yet