A peasant girl by the Yellow River passed down ancient skills and weaved “rich homespun cloth” that was sold overseas
On a hot summer day, the sound of machines can be heard everywhere in the Huichang Tubu Cultural Tourism Industrial Park located in Dongkaizhang Village, Yongji City, Shanxi Province. Farm girls on the banks of the Yellow River transformed into “weaver girls”, shuttles shuttled back and forth among thousands of colorful threads, and as the looms creaked, colorful homespun cloths slowly took shape. These homespun cloths will be sold to Singapore, Russia, South Africa and many places in China.
Yongji City is China’s high-quality cotton production base. Villagers cultivate cotton seeds in spring, manage cotton fields in summer, sell cotton in autumn, and weave cotton cloth in winter. Homespun cloth has been used by the people for more than a thousand years. Villagers in Dongkai Zhang Village weave and make clothes themselves, and the craftsmanship is passed down from generation to generation. The local Huichang homespun cloth making technique was selected into the fifth batch of national intangible cultural heritage representative projects in 2021.
Yu Yanping, 59, is one of the inheritors of this national intangible cultural heritage project and is also the party branch secretary of Dongkai Zhang Village. Under her leadership, Huichang’s homespun cloth making skills have been inherited and developed. “More than ten years ago, in order to increase the income of villagers, I took the women in the village to inspect industrial projects across the country. After many inspections, we decided to process cotton into textiles.”
“Basically every household in Dongkai Zhang Village has a loom, and the elderly in the family can weave homespun cloth. There are also many local farmers who grow cotton. The development of handmade homespun cloth has certain advantages.” Yu Yanping said, this not only allows the elderly in the village to use their spare time , and can also promote left-behind women’s employment to increase their income.
In 2005, Yu Yanping found a weaver craftsman to inherit the craftsmanship of homespun cloth. At the same time, we purchased looms, spinning machines and other equipment and established a company. Relying on traditional craftsmanship, more than 60 women in the village jointly established a cooperative one year later. Carrying looms and products on their backs, they opened up markets for homespun cloth in many places across the country.
Yu Yanping introduced that the production of local homespun cloth is complex and exquisite. It goes through 72 processes such as ginning, springing, whole cotton batting, spinning, turning, dyeing, wrapping, brushing, weaving, and beating. Only then can a finished product be made. These homespun finished products have bright colors, exquisite patterns and comfortable feel, and are very popular in the market.
In order to inherit and innovate the handmade homespun cloth industry, Dongkai Zhangcun established a cultural and creative company in 2012 to carry out homespun cloth design and research and development. At present, it can produce more than 100 kinds of products such as bedding, clothing, and cloth shoes. In addition to weaving, dyeing, decoration, etc. use traditional techniques such as plant dyeing, hand embroidery, and hand painting.
These products are sold at home and abroad, with an annual output value of more than 20 million yuan, directly creating employment for more than 800 people. At present, the “weaver girls” weaving in the workshop are the youngest 51 years old and the oldest 96 years old, with an average monthly income of more than 2,000 yuan per person.
“I have learned weaving from my mother since I was a child. The sheets and clothes at home are all made from home-woven cloth. I never expected that I can still make money from this to support my family.” Hu Shiqi, now 72, realized Find employment at home. She told reporters that she comes to weave when she has nothing to do at home. It costs 12 yuan to weave one meter of cloth, and she can weave seven or eight meters a day.
Today, Dongkai Zhangcun takes Huichang Homespun Cloth as its core industry and builds Huichang Homemade Cloth Cultural Tourism Industrial Park, gradually forming a characteristic rural tourism destination that integrates sightseeing, experience, leisure, study, food, and entertainment to help rural areas Revitalize. Farm girls on the banks of the Yellow River not only use looms to “weave” a happy life, but also “weave” handmade homespun cloth abroad.
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