Here is the “silk factory” designed to teach tourists how silk is made.

And here is how silk is made:

Step One: Boil the silk worm cocoons.

Step Two: Open the cocoon (BONUS: You can eat the grubs inside!).

Step Three: Spin the silk from the cocoon onto the spool.

Et voila, you have silk thread.

After the lovely demonstration, all of the tourists are herded into a room where they are STRONGLY encouraged to buy buy buy (blankets, coverlets, pillows, rugs …). Now, had we not been so badly stung by our teahouse experience (read previous entry), we would gladly have dropped some major Yuan at this point. But, meh. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice …