Handicrafts deliver villages riches
Ethnic arts and crafts have become a profitable rural industry, lifting villages in Hunan province out of poverty and contributing to rural vitalization.
About 97.5% of villagers in Hequn, Zhangjiajie city, in the province’s northwest, are members of the Bai ethnic group. Many of the Bai people are making a living selling cloth made with tie-dyeing, a method that calls for colors or patterns to be applied to textiles that they use to make their traditional clothing.
About half the villagers in Hequn recently took part in a workshop on tie-dyeing organized by Zhang Pihe, 43, a Bai woman born in Dali, Yunnan province.
Zhang inherited the skill from her grandmother.
“Tie-dyeing has been passed on through generations,” she said, adding that she would earn only about 2 yuan (29 cents) for 10 pieces of work when she was young.
These days a piece of tiedyed cloth sells for about 30 yuan in Hequn.
“Though the handicrafts are more profitable now, it is not only money that we are pursuing, but also the inheritance of Bai culture,” she said.
The village of Zhoucheng in Dali, Zhang’s hometown, and Hequn are sister villages.
The first group of Bai people moved from Zhoucheng to Hequn in the 1980s and brought their handicraft techniques with them. The villages formed an official partnership in 2012.
Yang Shuchun, 21, Zhang’s son, is also involved in tiedyeing, which he learned as a child from his mother. Yang said he remembers his parents would start work early in the morning, drawing the patterns they liked, brushing on colors, pinching some areas of the cloth and tying them tightly with thread.
The dye contains banlangen, a traditional Chinese medicine.
“I was curious about how the patterns were created by blocking the dye from reaching certain areas,” he said.
He is still learning tie-dyeing skills from his parents and plans to start independently making handicrafts in a few years.“I just want to inherit the ethnic arts.”
These days handmade clothes, hats, bags, shoes and other products made with tiedyeing
are sold at wholesale markets, on online platforms and via livestreaming. Prices range from 50 yuan for a bag to 1,200 yuan for a traditional Bai costume.
The Bai ethnic group is one of 55 in Hunan. Combined, there are 7 million people from ethnic minority groups, including the Miao and the Tujia, in the province, accounting for about 10% of its population.
Shi Shunlian, former Party secretary of the village of Shibadong in Xiangxi Tujia and Miao autonomous prefecture, has opened a Miao embroidery cooperative.
Given that women in the village excel at creating Miao embroidery, which is a national intangible cultural heritage, she established a cooperative in 2014 to sell handicrafts outside the green mountains.
In 2018 women from the village began working with the rail rolling stock manufacturer
CRRC Group to make handicrafts featuring high-speed railway designs for the company.
“I never expected that we could earn money from the embroidery that was previously only used to decorate our clothing,” Shi said. “The products are now being exhibited to the world, and we can make money by making handicrafts at home.”
Shibadong has been able to use its traditional Miao ethnic specialties as well as agricultural products such as kiwi fruit and peaches grown in the mountains to help lift the village out of poverty.
The per capita income of the villagers had risen from 1,668 yuan in 2013 to 20,167 yuan last year, and their collective income last year reached 2.68 million yuan, the Hunan Bureau of Rural Vitalization said.
“The (embroidery) products are now being exhibited to the world, and we can make money by making handicrafts at home.”