Collector Helps Yugur Culture Stay Alive Has Ethnic Artisan Ensures Preservation of Items from the Formerly Nomadic Group

6 | Tuesday, August 10, 2021 HONG KONG EDITION | CHINA DAILY CHINA Dressmaker Collector helps Yugur culture stay alive has ethnic Artisan ensures preservation of items from the formerly nomadic group. costumes Li Hongyang reports from Beijing with Ma Jingna in Lanzhou. e Cuiling, one of China’s all sewn up best-known collectors of traditional artifacts relat- By LI HONGYANG and MA JINGNA ed to the Yugur ethnic Kgroup, owes about 1.7 million yuan Lin Quzhi, a dressmaker from the ($262,000) after building a tradi- Yugur ethnic group in Gansu province, tional village to preserve her indig- once found herself in a fix because she enous culture. didn’t have enough cloth to finish tra- The 60-year-old from Zhangye, ditional wedding gowns within a Gansu province, amassed her collec- young couple’s six-week deadline. tion to help preserve the group’s tra- About three weeks into the task, ditions, which she feels are Lin discovered that she did not have disappearing rapidly. enough hezi, a kind of cloth woven “The Yugur reside mainly in Gan- from cow hair, that her clients had su. We have no written language, so requested as the main material for it isn’t easy to record or maintain our their gowns. Yugur clothes are usually customs. This group of only about made from silk or cotton. 10,000 people doesn’t have too many The Yugur were once nomads who traditional items left, and as time lived by herding. Like most of the cur- passes, they will disappear if they rent population of about 10,000, Lin aren’t protected,” she said. lives in Sunan Yugur autonomous Although Ke has collected thou- county in Zhangye, Gansu. Tradition- sands of items, she refuses to sell any ally, group members drew on local of them, despite her debts. “If I sell resources and made their clothes, them, how will our descendants tents and bags from cow hair. learn about their culture?” she said. Friends Lin asked for help were As the Yugur increasingly swap unable to supply more cloth, so she their nomadic, herding lifestyle for had to search across the grassland. an urban one, they are also relin- “It was due to a lack of workers who quishing their traditional skills, tools could make cloth from cow hair. Those and other items. who had the right skills were too old to “The younger generation doesn’t produce the material, while not many know how to make a tent or yak but- younger people want to learn. Nowa- ter. Some outdated things should be days, very few people take the time to discarded, of course, but the unique Ke Cuiling arranges traditional dolls of the Yugur ethnic group at her workshop in Sunan Yugur autonomous county, Gansu province, in make fibers from cow hair because Yugur culture must be retained,” Ke June. PHOTOS BY WU XUEFENG / FOR CHINA DAILY logistics companies can quickly trans- said. port various modern clothing materi- She began collecting traditional als to any location,” she said. items at the age of 14, but later she The journey spanned Zhangye, Fortunately, she eventually found intensified her efforts and sank all Dunhuang in Gansu and Turpan in an elderly woman who made the her income and savings into protect- the area around the Tianshan Moun- cloth in a village about 30 kilometers ing relics. Gansu tains in the Xinjiang Uygur autono- from the county. That allowed Lin to “I realized that these things might mous region. deliver the order on time. vanish some day, and they deserved “It was a rewarding trip because I Recalling the 2018 experience, the to be preserved,” she said. met and chatted with a lot of people, 37-year-old said Yugur costumes are Ke recalled that she initially began some of whom shared similar lan- not just clothes, but works of art, and Sunan collecting old pieces of embroidery guage and folk customs with the they should be handed down. because her mother had taught her Yugur,” she said. Before she married, Lin worked how to sew and embroider, and she for a tourism company in the Tibet loved the artifacts those skills pro- Spreading the word autonomous region. In 2010, she CHINA DAILY duced. In 2014, she decided to further and her husband returned to their Later, she realized that her peers spread the Yugur culture by building hometown in Sunan. Later, Lin were gradually replacing traditional the Sunan county cultural center as a village where visitors could see var- began learning the traditional skills wooden utensils with plastic ones. In an administrator while continuing ious artifacts and get a glimpse of the from Ke Cuiling, her mother-in-law, response, she began collecting other her collecting activities. group’s traditional daily life. who is a national inheritor of Yugur discarded items such as teapots, war- On one occasion, she heard that a The Sunan county government costume culture. In 2012, Ke started drobes and horse saddles because herder was selling a traditional allocated 20,000 square meters of a cultural company and offered Lin they were unique to the Yugur, she leather bag for 2,000 yuan. She bor- land for the settlement, and Ke paid a job. said. rowed the money but discovered the construction fees of 6 million “Learning traditional techniques In the past, many members of the that the item had already been sold. yuan. is not profitable, so quite a few group lived in tents on the grassland. Undeterred, she copied the style “I only had 200,000 yuan, so I bor- young people joined our company They made a living by herding, so and made a similar bag. “Things like rowed the rest from relatives, but left after just a few months,” Lin they had to move during summer that bag are becoming rarer. A copy friends, employees. I also got loans said. and winter when their cows and can at least let people know of its from banks, thanks to my good repu- The costumes feature embroi- sheep needed new grazing grounds. existence,” she said. tation in the county,” Ke said. dery and accessories such as beads “As a result, our wooden storage Over the years, Ke has traveled Despite her debts, she insists that and shells, so tens of thousands of boxes are narrow and short, because across Gansu in search of folk items entry to the village will remain free, beads have to be strung and then they needed to be convenient for and Yugur craftsmen who could as it has been since its 2015 opening. sewn onto each costume. The transportation by horse during our teach her traditional skills such as In 2016, the village attracted about styles differ according to the sub- frequent moves. They are different leather carving. 40,000 people, its highest visitor group and detailed rules must be from the boxes used by people whose As her activities became well- numbers so far. followed. lives are settled in one place,” Ke said. known, some Yugur donated their “Free entry means a lot of people Initially, Lin treated the job as a She continued to collect the items old items to her collection. One man will come to learn about our Yugur temporary occupation. She wanted even though she didn’t know how to presented Ke with his dead grand- culture,” Ke said. to find a position with the county take care of them. mother’s beads because he knew she Her family constantly encourages government but was unsuccessful. would protect them well and would her to continue obtaining artifacts “My parents didn’t agree with me Art and administration never sell her collection for profit. From above: Members of the Yugur ethnic group wear traditional for her collection. making costumes because I have a Ke is a gifted artist. In 1984, she She said her most difficult time dress to take part in a cultural event held in Sunan in June. “My mother, a herder, taught me bachelor’s degree,” she said. won one of the top prizes in a paint- came in the 1990s, despite her grow- Members of the group display their folk costumes as they pose for a to cherish our culture and old items. However, the more Lin researched ing contest held in her hometown in ing fame, because of the debts she photo at a square in the county. My husband undertakes nearly all the Yugur culture and learned the Sunan Yugur autonomous county, had incurred while building her col- the household chores, and I have skills, the more settled she felt. which is administered by Zhang ye. lection. “Back then, I felt embar- taught my son and daughter-in-law She is still impressed by the experi- Three years later, she was admitted rassed when I could not buy my Inspired by the experience, she The same year, she became a how to design and make handicraft ence of training for about 50 days at to the fine arts major at Northwest daughter an ice candy because I opened a shop in her home county. national inheritor of Yugur costume items so they can help me with my the Beijing Institute of Fashion Tech- Minzu University in Lanzhou, Gan- didn’t have the spare cash,” she said. In 2012, the store evolved into a culture, recognized by the then Min- work,” Ke said. nology in 2016. su’s capital. In 1992, she found a second source workshop where she makes tradi- istry of Culture, now the Ministry of So far, her collection has been “It broadened my horizons.

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