Maan Jayong is loosely translated as “ten thousand illusions” in Cantonese and is my favourite phrase from the language.
One became two
Two became three
From three come ten thousand things!
The ten thousand illusions.
While learnings this phrase in cantonese, my notes lacked phonetics and I scribbled:
Yuht sang yih
Yih sang saam
Saam sang Maanmat
Maan mat is ten thousand things.
Then I came across the wonder phrase Ten Thousand Illusions- Maan Jayong.
This phrase helps me keep balance of reality and illusion. When I am stuck in illusion, I come out of loop calling it Maan jayong!
About Tai Khampti weaving:
My association with Tai Khampti tribe began in 2012 when I expressed my wish to work with weaves of their community. She said she would involve her family- her own mother, mother-in-law and sisters-in-law to experiment making some weaves together. She mentioned that since they had not woven saris before, this would involve some trial and errors. Her family started to weave the more intricate patterns after about two years of trials. What started out among the family members in the year 2012, soon extended itself to about 30 homes of Namsai district.
In 2013, we brought about 500 kgs of cotton yarn to Arunachal Pradesh and took it as a drive to sensitise weavers towards using cotton over synthetic yarns for their indigenous weaves. Amla has championed the work we carried out with Tai Khampti weavers for more years than I could ever imagine. She began engaging untrained weavers, single mothers, and older women to engage in weaving plain, checks and striped fabrics. Rather than buying plain handloom fabrics from mainland, we began creating livelihood opportunities by weaving less intricate weaves as a medium of training new weavers and convenient income for trained ones.
All textiles in this Sari are woven by Tai Khampti weavers of Arunachal Pradesh, except the Ikat aspect.