by Elizabeth Archerd

The co-op’s 30th anniversary party last October was rainy, cold and extremely windy. Since I had to spend much of the day outside, I indulged in one of the gorgeous Chinese silk scarves that we’d recently started carrying. It was so warm and lovely that I wore it regularly all winter. Signs by the scarves indicated that the supplier is a member of Co-op America and the Fair Trade Alliance. Chinese Fair Trade? Intriguing. Curiosity led me to Chen Chen, owner of Cocoon-House, distributor of these luscious products.

Born the day Chairman Mao announced the Cultural Revolution, Chen is a deep believer that each person can make a difference. While her parents suffered in labor camps for a decade, Chen lived with her grandmother whose family had owned a silk factory before the Communist takeover. During the Cultural Revolution fine items like silk were denounced as “bourgeois” and carefully concealed by anyone who owned them. While wearing silk in public was dangerous, Chen’s grandmother wrapped her in big silk blouses to sleep in. The feeling of silk spurred her imagination; “I felt like a butterfly,” she swooned during our interview. Chen also loved silk worms (the only pets she was allowed), which she describes as smelling fresh and bracing, like lemons. She planted mulberry trees in her grandmother’s yard for a steady supply of leaves to feed her pets until they spun their silk cocoons.

Her family reunited when she was 10, and moved to Xian, in northwest China. When her parents were sent to Nanjing University, Chen stayed in Xian to finish college. Air pollution in the city grew worse as industry developed, and a former classmate wrote from Boston that the U.S. was a great place to escape the dust. Chen learned from geography books that Oregon’s primary exports were lumber and grass seed, which meant plenty of trees and not much industry. That led Chen to a program in family and marriage counseling at the University in Eugene. Her move to Minnesota was similarly motivated. A woman at the library mentioned Minnesota as the most beautiful place she knew, and that was all Chen needed to hear. She applied to the University’s doctoral program in family education in 1995.

In 1997 she married a university computer expert she met while desperately searching for someone to debug her database program. After finishing her degree, Chen continued to work at the university but wanted something more personally fulfilling. Her husband encouraged her to pursue a dream—and all her dreams included silk.

Not sure how feasible her business idea would be, Chen and her husband made an exploratory “silk trip” to China, visiting 30 different factories. Eventually they selected two employee-owned textile plants whose skilled craftsmen both love silk and are involved in the business decisions that include earth-friendly, age-old traditional methods. Chen points out that silk production is earth-friendly to begin with, since many trees are required to feed the delicate silk worms. Chen feels such a deep spiritual connection with trees that it her hurts to see a tree cut down.

A few scarves were the beginning of Cocoon-House. Chen brought some of her scarves to Hampden Park Co-op, where she shopped. The staff was so enthusiastic that she decided to call on Mississippi Market, Seward, the Wedge, and Linden Hills Natural Home. Every buyer grilled her about the conditions at the factories she uses. (While Chen suspects child labor may happen in remote areas, she emphasizes that it is illegal in China and education is compulsory, so it is not a widespread practice. She saw no child labor at any of the 30 factories she inspected.)

Chen travels to China twice a year to work with the designers on the unique designs for her products. She went in May to develop the fall designs and will go again in fall to produce the spring line. Stop by Linden Hills Natural Home or the Wedge Co-op; your next scarf might be waiting for you. Check their website to learn more about CocoonHouse.

Wedge Co-op
Reprinted by permission