From Tibetan Lama To Retailer
(by Jocelyn Fujii | Here's Hawai | January 2003)
Once a Buddhist monk in Tibet, Lama Wangchuk, through his Silk Road Carpets, now sells exquisite rugs that have been hand-woven in Himalayan villages
Lama Wangchuk walks through the antique Chinese moon gate of his rug shop wearing a radiant smile and a crisp, long-sleeved shirt the color of cranberries. A Tibetan Buddhist teacher and a former monk, he cannot help but carry with him an aura of refinement and joy. Under high ceilings, lining the walls and floor, are sumptuous carpets in colors of saffron, berries, sky and clay. Ranging from the traditional to the abstract, the colors and designs evoke images of high mountain places where clear-eyed Himalayan villagers put a bit of themselves into every knot they tie by hand.
"For one person, it would take about a year to make this," Lama Wangchuk explains over one of the exquisite silk and wool carpets that fill his Silk Road Carpets in Kaimuki. "Everything is hand-done. They hand-card the wool, hand-dye it, and after that, they weave. When you see the hand-made rug and machine-made rug, you can see, right away, the difference. This takes so much skill and tradition, and the outcome is very beautiful."
There are Tibetan, Persian, Chinese, Indian, Afghani and Turkish rugs in traditional and contemporary designs, as well as fine weavings, pillows and crafts from Africa. On one wall hangs Lama's own design, a large lotus, weaved, like his other Tibetan rugs, by his sister and relatives in Nepal. Near the entrance are traditionally woven Tibetan carpets in the modern motifs of anthuriums and laua'e ferns, the signature of local artist Colleen Kimura of Tutuvi. Kimura's work launches the shop's Hawaiian Artists Collection, highlighting prominent Island artists whose tropical designs are sent to the Himalayas to be made.
"Once you know Tibetan weaving, you can do any design," the lama continues. "The least fine is 40 knots per square inch. The finest is 120 knots per square inch. The finer knotting gives you much more clarity in the design. Color is most important for a look, but the quality comes from the knotting." Also distinctive is the knotting technique, he says. It's found neither in Turkey nor in China and resembles Egyptian knots from 200 BC.
While steeped in tradition, the lama is also a modern man. He is 37, wears Western attire, and runs the shop with his wife, Dorothy, a former medical translator whom he met soon after his 1995 arrival in Hawai'i. It was his first time outside of India, where his family is among the nearly 2 million Tibetans driven to exile by the Chinese government. He came to Hawai'i following 13 years of Tibetan Buddhist training and three years, three months and three days in retreat at Sherab Ling, a monastery in northern India established by his brother, the 12th Tai Situ Rinpoche, one of the world's most revered leaders of Buddhism.
"After a couple of years here, I met Dorothy and everything changed," he reflects. "We said, OK, I am no longer a monk now." His first job in America was making French fries at a Seattle McDonald's, a period he describes as "sometimes a silly story," and also "a great way to learn things." After their marriage in Seattle during one of its worst snowstorms — 3 feet of snow on the last day of 1996 — they returned to Hawai'i, where he worked four years for the Indich Collection before forging out on his own.
"My family had been making rugs for decades, so since I am not a monk anymore, although I teach and do spiritual practice, I work with my family to make a living," he says. The strong ethnic elements and deeply rooted traditions make Silk Road Carpets a rare family enterprise. With the lama's eye for elegance, it's also an aesthetic and cultural treasure.
Friends of Tibet (INDIA),
PO Box 16674, Bombay 400050
www.friendsoftibet.org