Behind each authentic ethnic costume is an individual who made
it by hand, using techniques passed down by older generations. An
exhibition in Beijing highlights this fading craft.
It's rare for young women in the city to practice sewing or
needlework like their mothers and grandmothers did in order to
clothe their families.
But in the underdeveloped villages of Southwest China's Guizhou Province, Miao women still hold fast
to the tradition of embroidery and brocade weaving.
Pan Wenzhen grew up in Zhijin County of Guizhou, home to
hundreds of the Miao minority people.
The unique ethnic clothes she wears display both a compounding
beauty of different handicrafts and the ancient aesthetic values
treasured by the Miao group.
Her sleeves are stitched with flashy embroidery pieces, which
feature vivid designs of animals, including the imaginary phoenix,
a tiger and a cat.
The back of her collar was sewn into a brocade piece woven by
Pan's mother. The brocade distinguishes itself with complicated
geometric patterns, an example of the unique handmade textiles of
Guizhou's ethnic groups.
Pan's distinctive dress has drawn admiring glances at the Museum
of Ethnic Costumes at Beijing University of Clothing Technology,
where a special exhibition highlighting a selection of 600 costumes
of Chinese ethnic minorities is on show till July 8.
Organizers have invited Pan and nine other women of the Miao and
Dong ethnic groups from Guizhou to give brocade-weaving
demonstrations for a week.
Like many Miao women, Pan began learning to embroider when she
was 7 years old. She started operating the wooden weaving loom,
under her mother's instruction, at the age of 11.
There was no guidebook telling these women how the loom
functioned. A weaving formula was orally passed down from older
generations.
The method remains the same today, and young Miao girls keep the
tradition alive by practising weaving after school.
Visitors to the costume show may have noticed that Pan murmured
the formula while working on the loom. It reminds her of the
particular order in which to pick up sets of white cotton
thread.
The brocade Pan worked on was to be used as a waist decoration.
It takes an experienced weaver like Pan two months to produce a
one-meter-long piece.
Pan felt a little nervous being surrounded by curious people and
exposed to camera flashes. She said that in her hometown, women
usually gather together at someone's house. They sing and talk over
family and village affairs while weaving and embroidering.
They don't make as many exquisite costumes these days as their
ancestors did.
"We only wear our ethnic clothes on special occasions, like the
wedding ceremony and traditional festivals," said Pan. She herself
usually wears daily clothes produced in modern factories.
Some of the gorgeous clothes worn by Pan's forebears are on
display in the glass boxes around her at the ethnic costume
show.
Liu Yuanfeng, the deputy principal of Beijing University of
Clothing Technology, explained that many ethnic people, especially
the younger generation, leave behind their traditional
costumes.
"However, ethnic clothes are themselves dynamic tangible
cultural treasures. They also embody rich information that belongs
to the intangible section," said Liu.
"The information, for example, reveals the development of the
ancient cloth-making technologies and the changes in the favor for
colors and designs. They have enriched our research into the living
style and values of the past," he said.
During the last two decades, Liu's colleagues have collected
more than 10,000 ethnic minority costumes from across the nation.
Half of the collections come from the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) and
the early 20th Century.
After they founded the Qing Dynasty, the nomad Manchus people
from northern China were conquered by the advanced Han
civilization.
The Qing costumes preserved the magnificence of previous
dynasties, with a new look blending the aesthetic essence of the
Manchus people.
The weaving technology was pushed forward to a new height at
that time. And the textile industry boasted a great quantity of
gorgeous fabrics, which were turned into imperial clothes and
ornaments.
The ongoing exhibition highlights a section of royal treasures
of the Qing period. It contains robes and official uniforms of the
Qing imperial court, as well as the attire and delicate headdresses
worn by ancient nobles of northern and western China's ethnic
tribes, including the Manchu, Tibetan, Mongolian and Uygur
minorities.
The museum features another 1,000-plus costumes of more than 100
branches of the Miao group inhabiting Guizhou, Yunnan and Sichuan
provinces.
It holds three permanent exhibitions displaying these authentic
handicraft works covering embroidery and weaving fabrics, garments,
silver accessories and dyed clothing.
Rarely seen even in their native lands, many of the pieces
represent top artistic levels of the Miaos.
The protection of ethnic costumes and the technologies used to
make them has not been deemed as important as preserving of other
cultural relics, such as bronze wares, porcelains and antique
paintings.
A considerable number of refined traditional clothes and
decorations have been taken abroad by private collectors during the
past decades.
Among many minority groups, the distinctive costume handicrafts
are less and less attractive to young learners, meaning the art is
in danger of fading out.
Meanwhile, a lot of scenic ethnic minority neighborhoods have
become popular resorts in recent years. Experts believe tourism has
had a negative effect on the ethnic costumes.
"Quite a few ethnic dresses in shops in those resorts are
actually a bad mix of clothes of several different minority
groups," said Yang Yuan, curator of the Museum of Ethnic
Costumes.
"Sometimes, you can only find the original ethnic costumes in
the poverty-stricken areas where there are almost no tourists," she
said.
Yang has been devoted to collecting ethnic costumes and saving
ancient handicrafts for two decades. She has visited numerous
minority neighborhoods across the country, and built close
relationships with the ethnic locals.
In 1999 and 2000, Yang and her colleagues took a close look at
the fish-skin clothes made by Hezhe people living in Northeast
China's Heilongjiang Province.
For centuries, the Hezhe people donned in fish-skin clothes and
shoes in the summer while fishing. But the custom of wearing the
unique fish-skin outfits has gradually disappeared in the new
century.
Yang and her colleagues used a video camera to record You Cuiyu,
an elder Hezhe woman, making a suit out of fish skins.
As she had no one to inherit her skills, You passed on all her
techniques to Yang when she left the village. The old woman died a
year later.
"On one hand, we should no longer ignore the preservation of
declining ethnic costumes. On the other, we should also think about
how to enliven these ancient clothes and ornaments," said Liu.
China has seen a recent interest to adopt patterns and colors of
the traditional attire in the new clothing industry. The new style
has captured customers from both home and abroad.
"But a larger part of them are of low quality and need better
designing," said Yang, who wore a blue jacket made by her student
and featuring Chinese-style decorations.
"The education and research of the modern costume design are
still on their early stages now in the country. Our textile
products could not distinguish themselves on the international
market with a lack of support of the ethnic culture," said Liu.
(China Daily June 28, 2006)
