Minjianxiuhuo
01 · Historical Records
Chengcheng embroidery is a folk embroidery art popular in the Chengcheng County area of Shaanxi, with a long history reaching far back. In the Chengcheng region embroidery has a deep popular foundation and is widely applied in daily production and life, being closely connected with customs such as weddings, funerals, festivals, and sacrificial ceremonies. In former times, during the slack farming season, women would sit together around the heated brick bed (kang) doing their work, and the bedcovers, door curtains, and funerary articles they embroidered were necessities in nearly every household.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Folk embroidery is also known as “needle embroidery,” “stitched flowers,” and “flower embroidery”; since it is mostly done by women, it is also habitually called “women's needlework” (nügong). It is a traditional folk craft: a needle threaded with colored thread is passed through the fabric to form stitches, so that the embroidered marks create specific patterns or characters. Finished folk embroidery pieces are indispensable gifts and decorations in folk activities. The craft has a long history and is closely bound up with the daily life of ordinary people; since ancient times, Chinese folk tradition has circulated the saying “To know whether a family's daughter is clever, look at how good her needlework is.” Folk embroidery embraces a wide range of subjects and rich cultural connotations, and its regions of transmission span the length and breadth of the country, from the great river valleys to the Great Wall frontier. In Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Hunan, Guangdong, Sichuan, Beijing, and elsewhere, folk embroidery has developed creatively, giving rise to distinct regional styles. Chengcheng embroidery is a folk embroidery art popular in the Chengcheng County area of Shaanxi; it has a long history reaching far back. In the Chengcheng region embroidery has a deep popular foundation; it is widely applied in daily production and life, is closely linked with folk activities such as weddings, funerals, festivals, and sacrificial ceremonies, and local rural women can basically all master a certain level of embroidery skill. Chengcheng embroidery is unrestricted in its choice of stitches, threads, and color schemes, being both practical and rich in beauty. Embroidered pieces come in a great variety of kinds, with everyday articles such as pillow ends, bedcovers, insoles, and aprons being the most common. Chengcheng embroidery covers a wide range of subjects with dense, full compositions; its patterns are simple and dignified, its colors are bright and vivid, and its designs brim with innocent, romantic imagination. Within its flowing, soaring movement there is a steadiness and honesty, expressing praise for the propagation of life and prayers for a better life.
Flat silk stitch and seed stitch
Flat silk stitch covers the ground while seed stitch builds up grains of colour, giving quilts both smoothness and relief.
Peony, lotus, bat and qilin
Its motifs — peony, lotus, bat and qilin — are chosen for auspicious sound and sense, set in strong red-and-green contrast.
Winter work by the kang
In slack season women sat by the kang to stitch, and because the work marked weddings, funerals and festivals it carried ritual weight in the village.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Chengcheng embroidery excels in flat silk-thread embroidery and seed stitch, most often working with auspicious motifs such as peonies, lotus flowers, bats, and qilin (mythical Chinese beasts), with a color scheme that emphasizes red-green contrast. In recent years, with changes in rural ways of life, the fading of traditional customs, and the impact of machine-embroidered products, the number of embroidering households in the villages has declined markedly, and the craft is now maintained mainly by a few elderly embroiderers.
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04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Chengcheng embroidery, which carries many elements of traditional culture and concepts of life, vividly reflects the values and aesthetic consciousness of Shaanxi farmers and has research value in fields such as folklore studies and folk art. At present, changes in rural ways of life, the fading of traditional social customs, and the impact of modern machine-embroidered products have caused a transmission crisis for Chengcheng embroidery, and it urgently needs protection and rescue.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Zhao Cuilin 05-2687
- Zhang Xiaohong 05-2688
- Liu Shouxian 05-2689
- Cai Yuee 05-2690
- Zhang Juhua 05-2691
- Li Xiayin
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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