Phum Soai: Home to Cham, Home to Art

Phum Soai: Home to Cham, Home to Art

Phum Soai Hamlet is home to the Cham people, a self-sufficient community who have been making a living and life on brocade-weaving craft.

 

Phum Soai is located at Chau Doc Town in the Mekong Delta Province of An Giang. It is situated along Chau Giang River, a conducive place which perhaps encouraged or at least made the brocade-weaving business a very lucrative one. There are about 300 households, each of which make creative products such as towels, bags, scarves, and key rings. Young girls in the village are said to have to learn the art as early as eight to ten years old.

 

Cham's brocade items are made from silk and dyed by natural substances from trees. The artisans are usually Muslim Cham women who wear equally colorful yet conservative dresses while going about their delicate work. They use traditional wooden looms in weaving their products.

 

Aside from their world-class art, Phum Soai also offers another interesting culture such as Muslim architecture as displayed in their mosques with roofs shaped like garlic and stilt houses.

 

The Cham people's brocade-weaving skills have become so well-known that they export their products to international countries such as India, Japan, Canada and no less than the United States.