Following the bride andbridegroom, we visited the batik house, one of the  intangible cultural heritage of Xijiang MiaoVillage, experiencing the magic of batik.

Stepping on the street inXijiang Miao Village, you can see the Miao nationality women dressed in nationalcostumes and cloths made by batik everywhere. With the Miao language aroundear, you can feel the thick ethnic customs here. The use of Miao batik is wide,in addition to being used in tops, longuette, apron and braces, it is widelyused in the larger sheet and curtain. So far, batik is still an importantelement in the life of Miao people.

As a kind of ethnic culture, although Miaobatik has its long history, but because of the remote location, traffic block,relatively backward scientific culture and slowdevelopment of the economy, the Miao people, isolated from the outside world,reserve the ancient batik up to now in tough conditions. It’s really a hardthing. Women start to learn batik since a child and each mother will teachtheir daughter about it. It’s the way how the Miao nationality inherit batik.

Batik is a kind ofcraftsmanship which is effort, time and material consuming with little economicincome. People who learn it originally now has changed their careers in orderto make a living. Nowadays, the young people are all working outside, leavingfew people to inherit this craft. The people who can inherit this skill arealmost all out-of-school girls and the rural women who can’t work outside withlittle cultural knowledge.

There is no text in thehistory of the Miao nationality. The pattern of batik reserves a lotinformation about the history, totem, folk-custom and story of the Miaonationality. It is the carrier of Miao culture. For example, Grain linesrelates to the worship of god, fishbone lines derives from fish totem, rippleand spiricle relate to theworship of water, spiricle relates to theworship of snake, dragon design derives from dragontotem, the circle line relates to the worship of sun, cloud thunder pattern derivesfrom the worship of sky, tooth ripple relates to the worship of mountain. Batikis a book which records history, keeping a record of the spirit and things ofhistorical stages of the Miao nationality. It is the rare evidence to study thehistory and society of the Miao nationality. We should keep a good protectionand inheritance of it.

Professor from School ofFine Art told us that folk batik was under the influence of social developmentand cultural change in the new condition of history. Its inheritancedevelopment faces many problems, at the same time, it goes with newopportunity. But as a cultural heritage with fluidity, it’s beneficial to carryforward the folk culture and reflect the aesthetic value through combing thedeep cultural connotation it contains in different social background.

Date:2014.8.13

Resource:TheChinese finance network