Mr. Huang, Chuanjia was an "old friend" of mine in my childhood. "Old friend" not only means that our relationship was good, but also that he was the oldest among my friends at that time. I was just 8 years old, but he was in his 70s.
I met Mr. Huang when the Zhijiang Normal School moved to Mu You Po in Seven Mile Bridge, just when the Cultural Revolution began. We both lived in the American-style bungalows that were previously residency of members of the Flying Tigers – nickname of American Volunteer Group in World War II. He lived in the adjacent building to mine.
Mr. Huang had studied in Japan before and later became a biology teacher at Zhijiang Normal School. He was over 70 years old, but he still didn't want to retire. He had a kind and gentle expression, always smiling. He was short, less than 1.65 meters, with gray hair and a long beard. He dressed very casually, wore a pair of thick-rimmed glasses, and always walked with a cane.
Whenever the weather was good, he would take a walk after dinner. Every time he went for a walk, he would invite some of the children to come along, and I was always happy to join. We followed Mr. Huang, who was hobbling along with his cane, and walked along the road beside the river.
There were tall and straight poplar trees on both sides of the road, and Mr. Huang would stop and check on them from time to time. We asked him why he liked poplar trees so much, and he told us that they were very useful because they could be used to raise Moon silkworms ((Actias selene Hubner).
Later, I found out from my father that Mr. Huang was the only Moon silkworm expert in China at that time. He had published academic articles on Moon silkworm research in national professional journals.
Mr. Huang's bedroom was filled with jars of Moon silkworm specimens: eggs, larvae, adult moths, pupae, and cocoons of all sizes. The books on his bookshelf were mostly about biology and Moon silkworm breeding. There were also shelves of chemicals, medicines, and dyes, as well as several alcohol burners, flasks, beakers, test tubes, and other laboratory equipment. The wall was hung with diagrams of the growth of Moon silkworms.
Every time we went for a walk, Mr. Huang would teach me some new knowledge, and I gradually became very familiar with Moon silkworms. Moon silkworms are wild silkworms that feed on mulberry leaves, poplar leaves, and other types of leaves. Poplar trees are the most common, and they are planted along the sides of the road nationwide, so silkworms can be raised anywhere.
The cocoons of wild Moon silkworms are several times larger than those of domestic silkworms, and are gray in color. The wild silkworms produce coarser silk than the domestic ones, but after steaming, drawing, and dyeing the silk with alcohol, various colors of silk can be obtained. The silk can be woven into silk cloth, ropes, and other textile materials. Mr. Huang said that Moon silkworm silk had many uses, but I don't remember them all. I do remember him saying that Moon silkworm silk was much stronger than domestic silkworm silk and was good for making parachutes because of its lightness and strong pull.In the room, there was also a threshing bin, which was used by farmers in the past to harvest and manually thresh rice in the fields. It had a large open top and a small bottom, a square shape with each side about four feet long and over two feet high. When spring arrived, he taught me to put the cocoons collected from the previous autumn into the threshing drum, lining the bottom with old newspapers and covering the top with more newspapers. The Moon silkworm pupae inside the cocoons would transform into moths, break through the cocoon, fly out, mate, and lay eggs on the newspapers. The Moon silkworm eggs were as small as sesame seeds, densely packed in a layer of gray on the newspaper like a layer of sesame seeds.
He took out the newspapers with silkworm eggs and showed me how to cut them into one-inch squares and put them into a bag. When the weather was clear, we took the bag and went to the roadside. We used a large pin to attach the small paper squares to the newly sprouted leaves of poplar trees, with three or four pieces on one tree. After a few days, the trees on both sides of the seven-mile bridge were covered with newspapers carrying silkworm eggs.
Every day during our walks, we observed the silkworm eggs on the paper. After more than ten days, the little silkworms hatched and slowly climbed up the new branches covered in leaves, disappearing.
Mr. Huang kept a small number of silkworm eggs at home and, after they hatched, put them in a large glass jar, bringing tree leaves back to raise them up close and observe the growth of the Moon silkworm.
In early June, when the silkworm grew to the size of domesticated silkworms and climbed all over the trees, we could see them again. Growing in the wild, the Moon silkworms are covered in long thorns to protect themselves. Their bodies are yellow-green and look scary. I was afraid to touch the Moon silkworms at first, but Mr. Huang told me that they don't bite humans. He caught the Moon silkworm with his hand and let it crawl on his palm, proving to me that Moon silkworms don't bite humans. Watching Mr. Huang catch Moon silkworms every day, I gradually overcame my fear. Later, I also tried to touch and catch Moon silkworms with my hands and let them crawl around.
Moon silkworms eat a lot and grow fast. They are very tough and not afraid of wind, sun, and rain. But they are afraid of birds because they eat them, especially during their larval stage. When they grow into adults, birds no longer dare to eat them. In autumn, the Moon silkworms can grow to be as thick as a finger and over three inches long. You can see them crawling on trees from afar. At that time, the white poplar trees on the roadside where we took walks were covered with them.
In late autumn, the Moon silkworms began to spin silk and make cocoons. We took a basket and caught some of them from the trees. Mr. Huang first put some wheat straw in the threshing bin and then put the Moon silkworms inside, covering them with newspapers on top. The Moon silkworms crawled between the wheat straw, found a suitable place, and began to spin silk and make cocoons.
After a few days, the wheat straw was covered in silkworm cocoons. We picked the cocoons and left some for next year's breeding while the rest were boiled in a pot. After boiling, we cut open the cocoons with scissors, removed the pupae inside, and drew out the silk to be dyed. Mr. Huang kept many dyed silks in his room, in various colors like red, green, yellow, and blue. It looked more like a kindergarten classroom than a bedroom. These silks could be woven into colorful fabrics.
Most of the silkworms were left on the trees, where they spun their cocoons. The following spring, they turned into moths and laid eggs on the trees, so we didn't need to order silkworm eggs from newspapers the next year. Huang hoped to raise silkworms on all the poplar trees by the roadsides across China. Raising silkworms in the wild requires little manpower and no silkworm houses. All that's needed is to collect cocoons and tools like ladders and baskets in the fall, and the harvest will be plentiful.
Huang lived until the early 1990s and passed away at the age of 100. If it weren't for his leg injury, he could have taken walks every day like he did at Seven Mile Bridge to visit his beloved silkworms, and he would have surely lived longer.
An old friend has left us. It's a pity that his dream of raising silkworms on all the poplar trees by the roadsides across China was not realized.
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