Zheng Yunxiang

01 · Lineage & Regional School

Zheng Yunxiang, Female, Han, from Feixiang, Hebei, is a sixth-batch national representative bearer of Traditional Cotton Textile Craftsmanship (Ⅷ-100). The tradition is documented in Feixiang, Hebei. Within the regional tradition and school record of Traditional Cotton Textile Craftsmanship in Feixiang, Hebei: The Feixiang branch's signature skill lies in characters: the stencil is pressed beneath the cloth roller, and the weaver, looking through the warp, passes the shuttle according to the character shapes, so letterforms grow directly onto the checked homespun cloth. Beyond characters, the locality can also weave patterns such as pepper flowers, fish eyes, twill, and butterflies. This craft has been passed down within the home by the women workers of each household; in recent years the Feixiang District Cultural Center of Handan has taken the lead in gathering the veteran craftsmen who know how to apply character stencils so that the skill can be transmitted anew. China's traditional textile technique has a long history. After cotton was introduced from India in the 7th century, China's textile industry shifted from hemp spinning to cotton spinning. By the 1960s, with the development of the machine textile industry, the production of homespun cloth gradually declined. In the 19th century, the Uyghur traditional handmade textile technique of Jiashi County had specialized households in every village, and the cotton cloth produced was deeply popular among the people.

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

The bearer record for Zheng Yunxiang is anchored in the documented technical standards of Traditional Cotton Textile Craftsmanship in Feixiang, Hebei. Within the documented technical tradition of Traditional Cotton Textile Craftsmanship in Feixiang, Hebei: By the Yuan dynasty, under the influence of Huang Daopo's reforms of textile technique, the textile industries of places such as Weixian and Feixiang County in Hebei gradually developed and flourished, and garments and bedding tailored from homespun cloth became necessities of daily life. The traditional textile technique of Weixian, Hebei Province, is relatively complex, comprising twelve process steps: twisting flower knots, spinning yarn, beating yarn, dyeing yarn, sizing yarn, winding yarn, warping, printing cloth, drawing the heddles (tao zeng), passing through the reed (chuang chu), mounting the loom, and weaving cloth. The key process steps that determine the stripes, checks, and patterns of the woven cloth are the designed arrangement of the colored warp and weft yarns and the setting of the heddles (zeng). The heddles (zeng) are of three kinds: two-page, three-page, and page. With a two-page zeng, a single shuttle can weave white cloth and striped cloth, while an ordered arrangement of the colored warp and weft yarns can weave a great variety of checked cloth. Through long production practice, the women of Weixian have created more than two hundred weaving designs for striped, checked, and patterned cloth. The character-woven homespun cloth of Feixiang County, Hebei Province, involves process steps including spinning yarn, twisting yarn (guai xian), sizing, winding, warping, brushing the yarn, printing the yarn, drawing the heddles, passing through the reed, mounting the loom, and applying character stencils; the technique is highly distinctive. In weaving, a calligraphy stencil is affixed beneath the cloth roller of the loom; seen through the warp threads, the character shapes of the stencil are visible, and by passing the shuttle in accordance with the characters the corresponding letterforms are woven into the cloth. Beyond calligraphy, the Feixiang character-woven homespun technique can also produce patterns such as pepper flowers, twill, fish eyes, Scholar Xu Paying Homage to the Pagoda, and butterflies. The Uyghur traditional handmade cotton textile technique of Jiashi County, Xinjiang, has a broad popular base; its ancient mode of production is still preserved today, and its process proceeds in sequence through cotton fluffing, spinning, twisting yarn, winding, warping, printing cloth, drawing the heddles, and weaving. After the 1990s, as industrialization accelerated, all manner of new garment fabrics poured into the market and modern textiles replaced handwoven cloth. This dealt a severe blow to the Uyghur traditional handmade textile technique: market demand for hand weaving shrank, hand-weaving artisans switched to other trades in numbers, and specialized hand-weaving households dropped sharply to the current dozen or so. The remaining elderly weavers average nearly sixty years of age and increasingly find weaving beyond their strength, while young people are unwilling to inherit the traditional handmade textile technique. The Uyghur traditional handmade textile technique is on the verge of extinction and urgently needs attention. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "": "Archival Record of Process Steps": The traditional textile technique of Weixian, Hebei Province, is relatively complex, comprising twelve process steps: twisting flower knots, spinning yarn, beating yarn, dyeing yarn, sizing yarn, winding yarn, warping, printing cloth, drawing the heddles (tao zeng), passing through the reed (chuang chu), mounting the loom, and weaving cloth.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

In 2025, Zheng Yunxiang was announced in the sixth batch of national representative bearers for Traditional Cotton Textile Craftsmanship, with Feixiang, Hebei as the declared area. Within the documented safeguarding record of Traditional Cotton Textile Craftsmanship in Feixiang, Hebei: The project was inscribed in the national inventory in 2008 (batch 2), with Feixiang, Hebei as its declared area, and Handan Feixiang Qu Cultural Center (Qugonggong Library) as its safeguarding unit. Since the project was inscribed in the national inventory, its declared area and safeguarding unit have carried out documentation, transmission and presentation within the national safeguarding framework. Together, the inventory record and the project archive form the public documentary basis for the bearer’s transmission practice.

04 · Associated Heritage Item Dossier

05 · Fellow National Bearers Lineage

National representative bearers recorded under the same item code, ordered from the first to the sixth batch. Batch order is not a teacher–student relationship.

06 · Archival Sources & Bibliography

1. Zhengyunxiang (Feixiang, Hebei) · China ICH Official Project Archive
2. Zhengyunxiang · China ICH Official Archive