Tonight, we step softly into the inner room of a silk merchant's household in a ward just north of the West Market in Chang'an, four days before the Dragon Boat Festival = the Duanwu (端午), the fifth day of the fifth lunar month, nearly 1,300 years ago, at the height of the Tang Dynasty.

The silk merchant's wife sits before the worktable where five reels of silk thread are four days before the Dragon Boat Festival. She measures each length by arm, aligns the strands, and begins to twist — each cord slowly taking on its spiral of green and red and yellow and white and black. One by one the finished threads are set along the shelf, each made for a specific child in the ward, the afternoon light from the high window falling quietly across them.

Settle in, relax, and drift gently into sleep. 😴

Chapters

00:00 Welcome