Age-old Traditional Silk Makes Its Way to Cocoon House

By Elizabeth Archerd, Member Services Director

October 16, 2004, the Wedge 30th Anniversary Party was rainy, cold and extremely windy. Since I had to spend much of the day outside under the tent, I indulged in one of the gorgeous Chinese silk scarves that we'd recently started carrying. It was so warm and lovely that I wore it regularly all winter. Signs by the scarves indicated that the supplier is a member of Co-op America and the Fair Trade Alliance. Chinese Fair Trade? Intriguing. Curiosity led me to Chen Chen, owner of Cocoon-House, distributor of these luscious products. What a story she has lived.

Chen is a deep believer that each person can make a difference. She was born the day Chairman Mao announced the Cultural Revolution. While her parents suffered in labor camps for a decade, Chen lived with her grandmother, whose family had owned a silk factory before the Communist takeover. During the Cultural Revolution fine items like silk were denounced as "bourgeois" and carefully concealed by anyone who owned them. Wearing silk in public was dangerous, but Chen's grandmother wrapped her in big silk blouses to sleep in. The feeling of silk spurred her imagination - "I felt like a butterfly," she swooned during the interview. In addition to loving silk, Chen loved silk worms (the only pets allowed), which she describes as smelling fresh and bracing, like lemons. She planted mulberry trees in her grandmother's yard for a steady supply of leaves to feed her pets until they spun their silk cocoons.

Her family reunited when she was 10, and Chen moved with her parents to Xian, in northwest China. When her academic parents were sent to Nanjing University, Chen stayed in Xian to finish college. Air pollution in the city grew worse as industry developed, and a former classmate wrote from Boston that the U.S. was a great place to escape the dust. U.S. geography books indicated that Oregon's primary exports were lumber and grass seed, which meant plenty of trees and not much industry, so Chen entered a program in family and marriage counseling at the University in Eugene, OR. The jump to Minnesota was similarly motivated. A woman at the University library mentioned Minnesota as the most beautiful place she knew - all those lakes and trees - and that was all Chen needed to hear. She applied to U of MN doctoral program in family education in 1995.

In 1997 Chen married a university computer expert she met while desperately searching for someone to figure out why her database program wasn't working. After finishing her degree, Chen continued to work at the University but wanted something more personally fulfilling. Her husband encouraged her to pursue a dream, and all her dreams included silk.

Not sure how possible the business idea would be, they made an exploratory "silk trip" to China, visiting 30 different factories. Eventually they selected two employee-owned textile plants whose skilled craftsmen both love silk and are involved in the business decisions that include earth-friendly, age-old traditional methods. Chen points out that silk production is earth-friendly to begin with, since many trees are required to feed the delicate silk worms. Chen feels such a deep spiritual connection with trees that it hurts her to see a tree cut down. If you want to help China's environment, buy silk!

A few scarves were the beginning of Cocoon-House. As a Hampden Park Co-op shopper, she noticed they sold scarves so brought some in one day. The staff were so enthused that she decided to call on Mississippi Market, Seward, and the Wedge. Every buyer grilled her about the conditions at the factories she uses. (While Chen suspects child labor may happen in remote areas, she emphasizes that it is illegal in China and education is compulsory, so it is not a widespread practice. She saw no child labor at any of the 30 factories she inspected.)

Chen now travels to China twice a year to work with the designers to produce unique designs for her products. She went in May to develop the fall designs and will go in fall to produce the line for next spring. Keep an eye on the basket and the clothes hangers at the Health and Body Care counter. Your next scarf might be waiting for you.

To learn more about Cocoon House, go to www.cocoon-house.com