【Good Chinese Craftsmanship】I give my grandmother a "disciple grandson"

Narrator: Wu Suping, head of the Xianjiao ya handicraft workshop in Yucheng County, Henan Province

A few years ago, children just learned to walk, and their little feet were wet and smelly every day. After the grandmother of the hometown knew, she took two pairs of thousand-layered shoes and sent them over. The shoe has a wide toe and a thick sole, with a cute tiger head in the front and a small tail in the back that is a practical shoelace. The children in the community chased after it, but they were envious.

So I came up with the idea of learning from my grandmother and making traditional tiger-toe shoes into modern goods.

The traditional craft of making tiger head shoes is mostly made of yellow cloth, and 12 processes such as material selection, painting style, bottom cutting sample, smearing gowns, and wrapping the hemming of shoes are carried out. "Stitching" is the most exquisite: the stitches of the sole of the shoe, to be four stitches together, the needle group must have nine lines, two layers of bottom; the upper tiger head needs to use embroidery, plucking flowers and other stitches, tiger mouth, eyebrows, nose, eyes and other threads of color, thickness, number of needles are different.

Photo by Zhang Yili of People's Daily News

I don't know how many needle holes were pierced at the fingers, and I don't know how many meters it took to use the coarse cloth for the experiment, so it took me a few months to finally refine into a qualified "disciple" in my grandmother's mouth.

I tried to start a business. In order to make the tiger head shoes listed in the intangible cultural heritage authentic, the grandmother was invited into the workshop to check the customs. In order to meet the needs of the market, we insist on innovating in the inheritance: for example, in order to facilitate children's wear, the Velcro or telescopic design is adopted; in order to prevent children from falling, the design of the mille-feuille bottom + anti-slip patch is adopted. In addition to tiger head shoes, the pattern style is also constantly renovated, including frogs, carp, peacocks, and various cartoon images that children like. That adds up to more than a hundred models.

With the support of policies, we have a 2,000 square meter factory building, with professional designers and brands. The old craft, which was once affected by marketization and industrialization, has now ushered in spring.

(Interviewed and sorted out by Ding Yan, a reporter of this newspaper)

Source: Guangming Daily (January 5, 2022, 01 edition)

Editor-in-charge: Zhang Yongqun

Editors: Sun Xiaoting Sun Dai Zhang Xueyu