Li Shaoyu: infuse the inheritance wisdom into Pengshui Miao Embroidery. Video clip: Qi Zhipeng

"The inheritance of manual embroidery requires not only hands but also brains." Li Shaoyu, the representative inheritor of Pengshui Miao embroidery, a intangible cultural heritage project in Chongqing, has been continuously injecting "wisdom" into this skill since she learned Miao embroidery at the age of 8.

Pengshui Miao and Tujia Autonomous County of Chongqing, located in the southeast of Chongqing, has the largest Miao population in China. Pengshui Miao Embroidery is like a piece of jade inlaid here, which is a local cultural treasure waiting for people to dig.

Pengshui Miao Embroidery is famous for its fine workmanship and exquisite workmanship. There are more than 20 kinds of stitches and techniques, with bright colors and colorful patterns. According to tradition, Miao girls have to embroider a set of dowry by hand before getting married. Each pattern on it contains good wishes for life.

Driven by her elders, Li Shaoyu began to learn Miao embroidery at the age of 8. Delicate, she learned many embroidery methods of Miao embroidery patterns since she was young. At the age of 18, Li Shaoyu's token of love for her lover was a pair of insoles embroidered with "octagonal back". After her marriage, Li Shaoyu came to work in a clothing factory in Shanghai. With her skilled needlework, she became a skilled embroiderer in the factory.

　　 Li Shaoyu, representative inheritor of Pengshui Miao Embroidery, an intangible cultural heritage project in Chongqing.

However, Li Shaoyu still misses his hometown. In 2004, she and her wife bought 10 electric sewing machines from Shanghai, returned to Pengshui to run a clothing craft training class, taught fellow villagers sewing technology, and introduced them to work in foreign clothing factories, which solved the employment problem of many people. But a little worry came to Li Shaoyu's mind. "Many young people don't take needlework or learn embroidery. Traditional Miao embroidery is in danger of losing its heritage."

Since 2009, another job has been added to the training course, which is engaged in the training, production and sales of Miao embroidery. In 2011, Li Shaoyu established Rongyu Miaojia Embroidery Crafts Development Co., Ltd. Through the cooperative operation mode of "company+training+farmers", the company has driven local people to increase their income and become rich.

"We distribute cotton thread, patterns and other raw materials to farmers, who do a good job of recycling and establish channels for sales." Li Shaoyu runs around the villages and towns of Pengshui, teaching more than 300 farmers embroidery free of charge. As long as she innovated the embroidery patterns and techniques, she would go to the village. The training is carried out through centralized teaching, and the time varies from one week to one month. "Not every stitch may be used to complete a work, but I ask them to learn every stitch. These are basic skills."

　　 Li Shaoyu set up a training class to teach more than 300 farmers to learn embroidery.

Li Shaoyu often said that every needle and thread is love, and needle and thread become money. Last year, when she went to teach in a poor village, a student excitedly told her, "I have been learning embroidery for a year, and I have earned 4000 yuan by this skill." At present, 80% of the embroidery women trained by the company are poor households who have filed cards, and 200 embroidery women can independently embroider sachets, insoles, and large and small landscape paintings. Li Shaoyu said interestingly that every embroiderer is a "living advertisement" inherited by Miao Embroidery, and "the students' personal experience will drive more people around to learn."

In 2017, Li Shaoyu became a representative inheritor of Pengshui Miao Embroidery, an intangible cultural heritage project in Chongqing. This not only encouraged her to continue her entrepreneurial journey, but also encouraged her to further innovate the content and form of embroidery on the basis of inheriting traditional techniques.

The traditional Pengshui Miao Embroidery is bright in color and symmetrical in pattern. The selection of materials is mainly cotton cloth and cotton thread, and most of them are Miao costumes. Over the years, Li Shaoyu has tried to break the tradition of Pengshui Miao Embroidery, which is limited to totem, big flower, flower, bird, insect, fish and other embroidery patterns. He has integrated various embroidery techniques, such as pile flower embroidery, flat embroidery, braid embroidery, and seed beating embroidery, and created embroidery with real silk fabrics, silkworm threads and other embroidery techniques. At the same time, Li Shaoyu's vision has become "young", and she will innovate color matching, patterns and embroidery according to the trend.

　　 Li Shaoyu, representative inheritor of Pengshui Miao Embroidery, an intangible cultural heritage project in Chongqing.

At the beginning of this year, affected by the epidemic, the business of the garment factory was affected, but Li Shaoyu still did not reduce staff, and still placed orders for poor households. She also changed the training course of Miao embroidery skills to live online teaching to share embroidery techniques. Among the 60 students who signed up, she saw many new faces. "Many college students also watched my online classes." Offline, she also received many works, "They have the potential of embroidery."

As a NPC deputy, Li Shaoyu has learned more about the protection and inheritance of intangible cultural heritage. During the performance of her duties, she submitted the proposal of "using the tangible hand of the government to promote the sustainable development of manual embroidery", one of which is to incorporate embroidery into the education system, open traditional embroidery manual courses, and cultivate professional traditional manual embroidery talents. Li Shaoyu invited more young netizens to experience offline courses to find real embroidery lovers and carry out systematic inheritance. (China Youth Network reporter Liu Shangjun intern Li Xinran)