Linwu Rush Weaving skill
2023-08-04 10:29:46
Hu Xiaoqin is an inheritor of the rush mat weaving skill, an intangible cultural heritage item. Over the past 40 years, she has continued efforts to innovate, increasing the product variety it from one to nearly 100 now. At the same time, she imparts the skills to others, allowing more overseas people to experience the unique charm of this intangible cultural heritage item of Linwu County.
Walking into Xiangfei Rush Weaving Studio, Hu Xiaoqin was explaining to the students the arrangement, principle, aesthetics, visual process and other elements of rush matting. The process is very complicated, so Hu Xiaoqin taught each step very carefully.
Hu Xiaoqin said that the rush mat is an environment-friendly and healthy product. By boiling and drying it three times, it has the effect of anti-mildew and disinfection, and a longer service life.
In 1988, 20-year-old Hu Xiaoqin was sent by China to Africa to teach straw weaving skills because of her outstanding craftsmanship. In order to better inherit and spread this craft, she established Xiangfei Weaving Crafts Company in August 2016, which provides free courses for students and citizens, so that this intangible cultural heritage item of Linwu can be learned and then better inherited.
Hu Linjiang is so interested in traditional culture that she came here to learn it. She says that after being exposed to it, she finds the rush weaving very magical for it turns small grasses into a variety of products, and she also feels the charm of the intangible cultural heritage in the process of weaving.
Hu Xiaoqin prepared more than a dozen products to participate in the third China-Africa Economic and Trade Expo, especially some hats with a large brim, which are more suitable for Africa.
It is the continuous innovation that makes Linwu Rush Weaving shine on different platforms and win worldwide recognition. In the 1950s, it won awards at the World Crafts Fair in Leipzig, Germany, and was hailed as “the world’s unique handicrafts”, and it is still an inspection-free product for export. In 2018, it won the “Gold Award” at the 4th Characteristic Agricultural Products Expo in Hunan (Chenzhou) and was recognized as a “time-honored brand in Hunan Province”. Today, Hu Xiaoqin, through more than 40 years of innovation and development, has created more than 100 jobs and better publicized the rush weaving.
In the future, Hu Xiaoqin plans to teach more young people the rush weaving skills, and to involve more young people and handicraft enthusiasts in through activities such as study tours and intangible cultural heritage into schools, so that Linwu Rush Weaving can go further.
