Millennium Traditional Craft Embroidery Faces Crisis Of Loss

Chao embroidery, which has been identified as the national intangible cultural heritage, has faced the plight of embroidery workers and less successors after thousands of years of brilliant development.

Mr. Lin Zhicheng, a representative figure of Chao embroidery and a 86 year old master of Chinese arts and crafts, recently appealed that if the measures were not taken, the folk craft that had spread over a thousand years would be faced with the danger of being lost.

Chao embroidery is an excellent traditional Chinese national craft. It began in the Tang and Song Dynasties and flourished in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. It has a history of more than 1000 years. It is the mainstream of the four famous embroidered Guangdong embroidery in China.

Chao embroidery is regarded as an embroidery treasure by the past, and it is a collection or gift for the country.

Chao embroidery won the gold medal for the National Games in Panama in 1915 and the London World Championship in 1923. In the national arts and crafts competition held in the Qing Dynasty, only the Chaozhou embroidery artist was awarded the official title of "embroidery champion."

Since the founding of new China, Chao embroidery is a key gift from leaders of the state and international friends.

In the late 70s of last century, the exhibition of "Kowloon screen", which was created by Lin Zhicheng, a master of Chinese arts and crafts, was well received in Syria and was presented to the country as a national gift.

Chao embroidery is a treasure of traditional folk crafts in Guangdong. During the Olympic Games in Beijing, Guangdong will display the theme of "Cantonese wind and rhyme" in the "Chinese story" large-scale cultural exhibition of Beijing Olympic Park, featuring 31 handicrafts with Guangdong characteristics, 20 of which are from Chaozhou.

Chao embroidery used to be a pillar industry in Chaoshan economy, and there were many splendid times in history.

However, under the impact of the contemporary economic tide, the traditional handicraft, which has been handed down for thousands of years, is declining. At present, there are only a few embroidery artists in Xiangqiao district and the more than ten embroidered workers of the tide embroidery factory.

The youngest embroidery workers are over 60 years old.

Mr. Lin Zhicheng, the master of the embroidery technique, has only passed second generations. His granddaughter thinks that Chao embroidery is too time-consuming and cheap, and it only carries on the art painting for wedding dress and fashion design.

Lin Zhicheng believes that Chao embroidery has a profound cultural accumulation after thousands of years of inheritance. It can not be replaced by any mechanized production. If hand embroidery is lost, it will be a loss of Chinese culture, especially a loss of Guangdong culture.