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March 27, 2017

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Home » City specials » Hangzhou

Keeping alive ‘shimmering’ Zhuang skills

IN China’s vast land, cultures and customs vary from north to south; east to west.

In the southern Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, some people still wear their shimmering traditional black and blue clothes, colorfully embroidered.

Weaving and dying technology to produce those distinctive fabrics were invented 2,000 years ago by the Zhuang ethnic minority people.

An exhibition of brocade and embroidery culture of Zhuang at the China National Silk Museum in Hangzhou runs until June.

Supported by the Guangxi Museum of Nationalities, the exhibition showcases Zhuang costumes, brocades, bandhnu and embroidery.

Black kerchiefs, black jackets and black pants or skirts are typical Zhuang clothes. But the black base is enriched with colorful embroideries and welts.

“Traditional skills are usually about exquisiteness but not speed,” said Zheng Yayuan from the Guangxi Museum of Nationalities.

She said that to make the cloth, locals first weave a cotton cloth and dye it with plant root. Then they coat egg white on the fabric and use a mallet, hammering it thousands of times until it dries and shimmers from the protein.

The brocade also takes time.

“I weave 1 meter a day,” said Tan Xiangguang, a 63-year-old master who showed up with her Bamboo Cage Loom. “If the pattern is complicated, only tens of centimeters daily.”

At the opening ceremony of the exhibition, Tan demonstrated how to weave Zhuang brocade on the Bamboo Cage Loom that looks like an ordinary loom, plus a huge horizontal cage above.

She first designs the pattern on the cage, and then weaves. Threads from the cage were shifted to the loom underneath, so patterns were formed on the fabric.

The brocades are of various colors, of thick and heavy texture and strongly contrasting colors. They feature patterns including animals and plants. Unlike the other Chinese brocades, Zhuang brocade is made of cotton (meridian) and velvet (weft). They are made into bags and quilt covers.

Because the loom threads can only go straight or lie horizontal, the patterns, no matter of plants or animals, are mosaic, or say, look like images from the Pacman game.

Embroideries are more figurative.

“The beauty of Zhuang embroidery can be seen on baby straps,” said Zheng. “It carries the Zhuang women’s wisdom of embroidery.”

She explained that the strap helps mothers carry babies on their backs, and on its back it boasts flower embroidery by grandmothers who devote their attention because they believe a flower god can protect their grandchildren.

 

Date: Through June 11, 9am-
4:30pm (Tuesday-Thursday); 9am–9:30pm (Friday-Sunday)

Address: 73 Yuhuangshan Rd




 

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