Endangered handicraft sees revival
Xinhua
BEIJING, Feb. 9 — Sales of horsetail embroidery articles are currently low, but 40-year-old Song Shuixian still believes the traditional handicraft has great market potential for the future in Guiyang.
    With the support of the local government, Song opened a shop half a year ago in Sandu, China’s only Shui autonomous county in the southwestern province of Guizhou.
    A special traditional handicraft among women of the Chinese Shui minority, horsetail embroidery is usually used to decorate clothes, shoes, small wallets and T-shaped bags for carrying babies on one’s back.
    However, the handicraft has been dying out over the past few decades, as young women from the Shui minority are choosing to move to big cities to make their money or study, as opposed to engaging in a time-consuming craft that has not been putting the bread on the table.
    “It is a complicated procedure,” Song said.
    A thread for embroidering has to be spun into three thin threads, which are then entwined with three to four horsetail hairs.
    The horsetail hair is used to create different patterns. Finally general embroidering skills like cross-stitching are needed to complete a horsetail piece.
    “Only women in their 50s or 60s have this embroidery skill,” said Song. “It is vital that we protect this important traditional handicraft. Otherwise, it may become extinct.”
    The handicraft has just been listed in China’s first group of valuable cultural heritages by the Ministry of Culture.
    Born in Bangao village, a region that practises the tradition of horsetail embroidery, Song learned the craft from her mother when she was very young.
    In recent years, the local government has allocated special funds for training some 600 women to preserve and develop this handicraft with a history of more than 1,000 years.
    “Our purpose is to make this endangered craft become a fast-growing industry in the county,” said Liu Changjiang, a top official of Sandu County.
    A special team has also been set up to salvage the traditional culture of the Shui minority, with horsetail embroidery as its main work, according to Liu.
    “The market for horsetail embroidery products is quite encouraging,” said a tourism official of Sandu.
(Source: China Daily)
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