Old coarse cloth returns to rural areas, full of memories

"Click, click, and click again, Mulan weaves at the door. The sound of the shuttle is not heard, only the sighs of the girl..." The widely recited "Ballad of Mulan" records for us the scene of traditional household weaving. A shuttle, a loom, what they carry is not only the production of raw materials for clothing and bedding, but also a distinctive rhythm of life and train of thought.

From the 1950s-60s to the 1970s, because of material scarcity, traditional coarse cloth weaving was still widespread in rural areas. People took old coarse cloth to the market to sell to supplement household income. Today, with the development of the textile industry, old coarse cloth has long withdrawn from the mainstream market. Old coarse cloth, together with hand looms, has also become a memory for many people.

However, memory can also push traditional handicraft to reappear in life. Nowadays, hardworking rural women in Anyang, Henan, are once again weaving old coarse cloth amid the familiar sound of the loom.

At present in rural northern Henan, women have again set up looms that had been unused for thirty to forty years during the slack farming season. Several women join together, buy cotton thread, and cooperate in weaving cloth. This old coarse cloth is warm in winter and cool in summer, does not stick to the body in summer, is very comfortable, and is much loved by everyone.

Throwing the shuttle, stepping on the pedal, pulling the rope frame, joining threads, warping, and winding thread - folk craftswomen Zhang Qiao'er, Zhang Aiqin, Zhang Guizhen and others from Lisong Village, Cuijiaqiao Town, Anyang County, deftly complete each step of the weaving process. They repeat movements like these on the loom thousands of times every day. This has brought the loom, which had nearly disappeared in the village for thirty or forty years, back into the hands of folk artisans. Some young wives do not know how to weave, so the middle-aged and elderly artisans in the village teach them.

It is understood that with the improvement of urban and rural residents' living standards, more and more city people and country people have come to like "native-grown" "green" pure cotton home textiles. Old coarse cloth, relying on qualities such as its pure cotton texture, hand weaving, and ancient folk craftsmanship, is increasingly favored by people. "Now when we weave a bedsheet, we can earn seventy or eighty yuan." The woven bedsheets also have creative names: like Xinlimei, Wufu Linmen, Hui Tailang, Quanjiafu, Mei Yangyang and so on, deeply loved by everyone. Craftswomen Kang Fumei, Chen Ting'er, and Duan Aihua are all weaving experts, and can weave two or three bedsheets in a day. They work in cooperation in groups of three to five or seven to eight people, setting up one to four local looms in one household and weaving together during slack farming periods. The woven cloth, besides being made into pure cotton bedsheets for their own use, can also be given to their children, and if more is woven, it can be sold.

Of course, in villages such as Dongcaoma in this town and the nearby Baizhuang Market in Baizhuang Town, it has already become an industry, with wholesale cotton thread, color blending, pattern design, and so on, turning handicraft into a new path to wealth and increasing each person's annual income by several thousand yuan. Craftswomen in villages such as Dongcaoma, Kangsong, Lisong, Susong, and Guosong in Cuijiaqiao Town join together to weave during slack farming seasons. Dongcaoma Village also has several organized cooperatives that have begun to take shape, and the cloth they weave has already been brought to market.

Spinning thread

Buzz, buzz, spinning thread. Cotton thread needs to be spun one strand at a time, and coarse cloth needs to be woven one shuttle at a time. Although the speed is very slow, old coarse cloth is thick, flat, and has clear warp and weft, better reflecting the rustic flavor and ethnic characteristics of old coarse cloth. The author saw at Zhang Qiao'er's home that these bedsheets have many patterns. She brought out more than twenty bedsheets at once and happily told the author that she mostly uses three-ply thread and does not starch the cloth, so it has better softness and is suitable for making bedsheets, pure cotton shirts, and trousers.

She began weaving last year. She told me that making one bedsheet costs eighty or ninety yuan, and a 2 m x 2.2 m bedsheet generally sells for about 200 yuan. The bedsheets she and Zhang Aiqin made have already been sold by acquaintances to Tianjin, Anhui, and locally in Anyang. The main products are pure cotton bedsheets, and there are also three-piece bedding sets and shirts sold as matching items.

Many people like old coarse cloth, especially newlyweds nowadays, who generally buy several pieces. It is said that old coarse cloth also sells very well in the small wholesale market in Yiwu, Zhejiang.

The author thinks that if people of insight could turn their hometown into a rural tourism weaving culture exchange center, design wonderful patterns, and create one pattern per household and one distinctive brand per courtyard, while combining this with the development of agricultural ecology, environmental protection, organic food, and so on, villagers would have more hope of increasing income. This would not only solve the problem of women having nothing to do during slack farming seasons, but also increase their income, carry forward the culture of local worthies, and harmonize neighborhood relations!

Brief introduction

Old coarse cloth:

Also called old homespun cloth, it is a hand-weaving craft used by the Chinese working people for generations over thousands of years. It is soft and comfortable, breathable, sweat-absorbing, warm in winter and cool in summer, does not generate static electricity, and has anti-radiation effects, with a very strong affinity for the skin. Because its threads are thick, its texture is deep, and it is flat, wrinkle-resistant, and does not curl at the edges, the entire cloth surface forms countless natural massage points, giving the human skin an unexpectedly beneficial health and skin-beautifying effect. It does not irritate the skin, prevents mites and relieves itching, regulates metabolism, improves sleep, and effectively defends against ultraviolet rays.

Loom:

Also called spinning machine, weaving machine, or cotton spinning machine. It once played an important role in the small-scale peasant economy of household workshops where men farmed and women wove. Traditional looms also gradually improved through repeated transformations, from the earliest ground-sitting backstrap loom. In rural China in the last century, the shuttle loom was widely used. Today, this old-style loom has nearly disappeared in many places. The beautiful scene in "Slender hands draw out white strands, click-click the shuttle works the loom" has become a distant memory.