Cansi Weaving Craftsmanship
01 · Historical Records
During the Song period of the Southern and Northern Dynasties (420–479), Shuanglin ling-juan was already renowned worldwide, and was exported far to more than a dozen Southeast Asian countries including Linyi (present-day Vietnam), Funan (present-day Cambodia), Tianzhu (present-day India), and Simhala (present-day Sri Lanka). By the Tang dynasty, the ling-juan of Shuanglin Town was designated as a tributary good presented to the imperial court, and was also exported far to Japan.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The traditional weaving craft of Shuanglin ling-juan in Huzhou City, Zhejiang Province, has a long and distant origin. Ling-juan is a combined name for ling and juan: "patterned is ling, plain is juan." According to records, Shuanglin was already producing ling-juan in abundance during the Eastern Jin. During the Taiyuan era (376–396), the famed calligrapher Wang Xianzhi, when he served as governor of Wuxing Commandery (present-day Huzhou City, Zhejiang Province), wrote on white juan. According to the "Gazetteer of Wuxing County," the ling-juan weaving craft of Shuanglin Town became even more developed in the Ming dynasty; the woven goods varied ingeniously and in great number, with patterned and plain varieties and both heavy and light types. Especially fine was the Twin-Dragon satin woven by the Ni family of Dongzhuang — the satin bore two dragons whose eyes stood out and shimmered with light, and it was for a time called a supreme product, used exclusively for memorials to the court. The celebrated ling-juan of Shuanglin Town in Huzhou is an important component of China's silk-weaving culture, and its weaving craft has been handed down continuously to the present day. At the Fifth Asia-Pacific Exposition, the "Hangong" brand patterned ling won a gold award and received unanimous praise from people both within and outside the trade. Under present circumstances, however, the silk-weaving craft of Huzhou is gradually declining, and the inheritance of the Shuanglin ling-juan weaving craft is thereby affected; the protection of this traditional handicraft of important historical value should be given high priority by the relevant quarters.
Patterned ling and plain silk
Ling bears patterns and juan is plain; the same loom yields either by changing the heddles.
The twin-dragon satin
The Ming gazetteer of Wuxing records the Ni family of Dongzhuang weaving twin-dragon satin with glittering eyes for court memorials.
Soaking, reeling and warping
Raw silk is soaked, reeled and warped before it can be loaded; badly ordered filaments snap on the loom.
Calendering and finishing
The woven cloth is boiled, dyed and calendered, which closes the weave and gives lin silk its smooth handle.
Brocade ling and guxiang jin
His 1980 brocade ling and guxiang jin won a national design award, extending the craft into mounting fabrics.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The production area of Shuanglin ling-juan is concentrated around Shuanglin Town in Huzhou. In the Ming dynasty, Dongzhuang was a famed place of origin for Twin-Dragon satin, whose two dragons had eyes that stood out and shimmered; in those years it was supplied exclusively for court memorials. In the term ling-juan, ling refers to the patterned kind and juan to the plain kind, a division that has long endured. The weaving comprises more than twenty process steps including soaking, reeling, warping, pirn-setting, weaving, boiling-and-dyeing, calendering, and finishing. When Zhou Kangming entered the factory in 1965 he learned from the very beginning, and today the Huzhou Yunhe Shuanglin Ling-juan Co., Ltd. is the home of this craft. He has also studied the material processing and coating techniques for the ling-juan used in mounting calligraphy and painting, linking the weaving and the mounting ends together.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Cansi Weaving Craftsmanship · Cansi Weaving Craftsmanship · Cansi Weaving Craftsmanship · Cansi Weaving Craftsmanship · Cansi Weaving Craftsmanship.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Zhou Kangming (per the official record of the associated inheritor): Male, Han ethnicity, born January 1948, from Huzhou City, Zhejiang Province. Representative inheritor of the third national-level batch of the intangible cultural heritage item "Silk Weaving Craft (Shuanglin Ling-juan Weaving Craft)." A silk-weaving technician. He entered the Shuanglin Ling-juan Factory in 1965, where he learned the traditional ling-juan weaving craft and mastered more than twenty process steps including soaking, reeling, warping, pirn-setting, weaving, boiling-and-dyeing, calendering, and finishing. In recent years, through continuous study and exploration, he has further developed the ling-juan making craft. At the same time, he engages in research on materials for mounting calligraphy and painting and on ling-juan, focusing on the processing and manufacture of materials, the properties of various materials, and the coating craft of ling-juan. In 1980 he developed brocade ling and the "Guxiang" brocade, winning the second prize for Excellent Creative Design of the China Arts and Crafts Hundred Flowers Award conferred by the Ministry of Light Industry.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Zhou Kangming 03-1357
- Yu Caigen 05-2795
- Shao Guanxing 05-2796
- Gu Mingqi 05-2797
- Hong Guizhen
- Zheng Xiaohua
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
This static English edition is rendered at the edge for search engines, AI crawlers and readers without JavaScript; it mirrors the bilingual dossier. 阅读中文版，或返回 英文名录。