Liu Sitong: Let Chinese local brands have more say in the international market

Guangming Network News (reporter Zhao Yanyan) On October 15, under the guidance of the Intangible Cultural Heritage Department of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the launching ceremony of the 2020 "China Intangible Cultural Heritage Annual Figures" selection and publicity activity and the theme activity of "Using New Media to Tell The Story of Intangible Cultural Heritage" sponsored by Guangming Daily newspaper and undertaken by Guangming Network were held in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province. At the meeting, Liu Sitong, a representative inheritor of manchu embroidery at the provincial level, a representative project of national intangible cultural heritage, said that the branding of intangible cultural heritage, the life of products, the rejuvenation of forms, the networking of communication, and the use of new media to tell the story of intangible cultural heritage can make Chinese local brands have more say in the international market.

The picture shows Liu Sitong, a representative inheritor of Manchu embroidery at the event site

The following is a transcript of the speech:

Distinguished leaders, seniors, and teachers, good afternoon, and it is a great honor to participate in this event. I am a native of Heilongjiang, have lived in Beijing for 20 years, and have been founding the Nalan Red brand for 8 years.

Full of embroidery, it can not only be decorated, but also can be made into a brand to operate. The design team we have now is also a graduate internship base for Beifu, and there are a large number of design talents. We also cooperate with institutions, including the Communication University of China Capital Normal University and the First Intangible Cultural Heritage, and also serve as a guest teacher. We have a full embroidery base, which is also the largest full embroidery base in the country that is very strongly supported by the state for the integration of production, education and research. We have modern spinning and haute couture are open in Beijing! At the National Ceremony of Wangfujing Gongmei Building, the front door of the debut of the National Wind Hall! There is also the clubhouse of Modern City.

All of us before, including research and education, full embroidery industrial park, this is my personal introduction. Since 2017, I won the Top 100 Chinese Intangible Cultural Heritage Figures, and I have got a lot of opportunities after being reported by our media! I think that China's intangible cultural heritage figures have indeed given a good endorsement to the inheritors, and have also received the attention of many teachers and leaders, which has given us a lot of opportunities under such circumstances, so that we can bravely and confidently stand up and spread our culture.

This is the Beijing Fashion Week we did in Wangfujing in 2018, and this golden cheongsam is our opening show of the Taimiao Asian Cultural Dialogue. This is after getting the Chinese Intangible Cultural Heritage figure in 2017, and then cooperated with Fendi Furniture. Everyone said: How do you see full embroidery, full embroidery going abroad and going international? In fact, we went to the Milan Expo in 2015, it was 2015, and 2015 didn't get much attention from foreigners. But in 2017, the president of Fendi Furniture, came to China in 2017, and then authorized our only and first partner in Asia, that is, our full embroidery to the international first-line brand OEM, which was just the beginning, which happened in 2017.

Naran Red's cross-border exploration, we do not only make couture cheongsam, dresses. Last year, I also did a big drama of the North Kun qingming on the river, that is, the costumes of kunqu opera were made according to the plot. There is also a lot of information on the Internet, which is an opportunity to get after getting the top 100 intangible cultural heritage figures. These are communicating with young people in a young way, and all the certificates obtained are also an encouragement to non-genetic heirs, and it is also my experience of disseminating intangible cultural heritage that I think is a good way to share with you. It's like today, sharing what I've already happened.

This is the Chinese costume series I made, before the Mid-Autumn Festival, I did the mid-autumn activities of the central cloud of the delegation, and we also made chinese clothes for the artists. The clothes I'm showing out there now, which walked through Fashion Week, were also worn by artists. Everyone must think that full embroidery is so expensive, how do you walk into the people? How to make everyone accept it? Why did everyone choose you? I'll share it next.

This is our brand in 2013, in fact, we have made a lot of costumes about Xiqu for the China Opera Channel. In 2016, it won the Best Inheritance Award of National Key Cultural Enterprise and Belt and Road, and cooperated with Fendi in 2017. Mainly talk about 2019, this year has done more things. In 2019, we did four big shows, the opening of the Asian Cultural Dialogue Film and Television Week, the 70th anniversary of the Central Party School, the big show of our own brand at the China International Fashion Week, and then a big show of the Ming Ming River in Beikun.

This is what happened in 2019, everyone thinks that Nalan Hong, Liu Sitong was very busy after getting the honor, and suddenly the cliff-like plot occurred (the epidemic), what did the epidemic bring to us? It can be said that it is the immunity of the enterprise, it is a test, but also an experience. It is a test of the immunity of enterprises, the immunity of individuals, and even the immunity of our survival. This is a serious test for us, what kind of treatment have I done? For this matter, I put the development of Manchu embroidery before. I put the online that I had never done before, moved the online in advance during the epidemic period, and then in the first half of 2020, we released 61 public accounts, of which all of them only needed to search for 61 public accounts on the Internet and released them online, our public accounts had products, beautiful texts, and beautiful pictures, and then opened a live broadcast room, and I broadcast more than 20 times myself, which was quite difficult. Just like the non-genetic heirs said by the previous teacher for the stage, for live broadcasting, new media is strange, not very understanding, I am thinking about the 2017 Guangming Network, Guangming Daily in addition to giving us the honor and title of the top 100 Chinese intangible cultural heritage figures, at the same time, we were actually in 2017 by the Guangming Network has such a live broadcast, leading us to live broadcast, suddenly remembered that there are millions of fans, in fact, the fans are Guangming Network, not our individuals, but we are stained again, although it is not particularly good. But to talk about our own craftsmanship, to talk about our heritage, it has to have a history, it has to be applied.

For example, clothing, our full embroidery, embroidery applied to the wedding, this is just needed. It can also be applied to the activities of the annual meeting, now the revival of national culture, qipao culture is also increasingly prosperous, it has qipao daily life clothes, so we can walk into life, how to put the intangible cultural heritage into life? We make some clothing, cushions, and even bags that can be used in life, and use cultural creativity to make it acceptable to young people and recognized by all those who can recognize it. All know our brand, know our craftsmanship through what to know? It turned out to be probably word of mouth, through the media. Nowadays, when self-media and new media become the way for us to spread, what do we suddenly feel at this time? The former people planted trees, the posterity cooled, at this time special thanks, how beautiful are we in this era? How labor-saving we are in this day and age.

Because the fourth generation and the third generation of inheritors, at that time, there was no self-media, new media, they sometimes came out of the mountains when they did it, or they used too few communication channels, and there were too many good works of one-body skills. It is rare to be seen and familiar with, so now the inheritors must embrace science and technology, must embrace the convenience brought to us by science and technology, and the energy brought to us.

Some people say: Liu Sitong, what is your best record of live broadcasting? Do you want to hear this? Bragging is all about being taxed, and what I'm saying now is after tax. My best record was in May, a live broadcast of a dress sold to 399,000, the buyer who is not known. I made it very clear that 39.9 million pieces of clothing, the buyer who is not known. What I said today is very responsible, and I think this is what I didn't think of in the first place!

In fact, what to say is very important, now everyone knows that there are tips for the live broadcast of Internet celebrities and beautiful women, and I did not use this. Because I don't feel that I have the conditions to be rewarded by others, first of all, I don't have a charming body, a cute face, and even a talking, what kind of people do I think non-hereditary heirs are? Persistent, more true, do you have this feeling? Many times people can't help the inheritor, he is very aware of his own reasoning, so we don't have to be liked by everyone when we express it, so who are we liked? Know the intangible cultural heritage, understand the intangible cultural heritage, know the intangible cultural heritage products well, know the production process of the non-genetic inheritors, all the cultural essences, and even we extract the most precious things, with self-media, new media open to let everyone see how to make, where we are good, this is too convenient.

After I became the anchor, from the beginning of the online 10 people, including my mother, my father, and later in August to be interviewed by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Chinese Culture Department, why interview? The inheritor of the most beautiful counterattack of the year. Just now I was embarrassed to talk about it, the previous sister talked about great love, she was sending. So what do I say next? I'm busy making money, not without big love. I also have a lot of love, I first raised my team, first stabilized my business, and then I found a way to think it would work. Everyone says OK, how can this not be tried? Knows whether it works or not, so it's one of my attempts.

At that time, my interview, the new crown epidemic on the fashion industry is more serious impact, a large number of fashion brands have gone out of business, what kind of impact does this epidemic have on your brand? I am a non-hereditary inheritor with a mission and responsibility, the inheritor will not fall, and the faith and responsibility of the inheritor are always there. As long as we are the inheritors, we have a force to insist on it, so this is also my philosophy of doing the brand. I have to stick with it and use it in my branding. The more difficult it is, the more we cultivate our minds, and in the face of this epidemic, we rethink and re-strategically position.

We have built an online classroom teaching, as well as an online cloud mall, which everyone can search for. We have also opened a privatization of strategic deployment, such as Douyin, public number, Tencent live broadcast, simultaneous broadcast you can open a lot of live broadcast ports, he has private domain traffic, public domain traffic, you don't know what kind of person will come, this is a big challenge for the inheritors, why? You have to answer different questions from different people, but also let others like you, stay in your room to increase popularity, in the end I am from 10 people to 500 people, 1190 people, 14,000 people, 17,000 people, and finally in June, I was invited to have intangible cultural heritage, which is a "four hearts" of our brand, innovation + conscience, original heart + ingenuity. This is also the slogan of one of our brands.

"Four modernizations", intangible cultural heritage branding, product life, young forms, communication networking, and back to new media to tell the story of intangible cultural heritage, communication networking embraces the Internet. Because the internet does give us great opportunities.

This is a photo of me and my aunt, who gave me the teaching to be an extraordinary craftsman, to be an intangible cultural heritage craftsman, and also to become the driving force and source of our intangible cultural heritage branding all the way to eight years, and to now we have been insisting on not giving up.

This is the poster we made, before the live broadcast to do various posters, and then to scan the QR code into it, this now some will also sweep in. Would you say that the live room is a little better than this? The one with the filter and the beautiful picture show seems to look a little better than the food when these functions are turned on. This proves that the food is similar to the line, and it is not repaired very badly, but the line does beautify us.

This is a photo of me live streaming with goods, and you can see that I am wearing black clothes. Not only did I live-stream my own full embroidery, but what kind of live broadcast did I think I opened later? Every skill knows to be seen, what is it? After I won the top 100 in Guangming Daily in 2017, I met many non-hereditary inheritors on this platform. Including my sister just now, we met at the event. I said sister, I live stream your products, I help you bring goods. I will sell as much as you want, and I will help you bring goods when I don't make money, why? I'm going to practice.

I don't know if anyone will buy it, but I want to give it a try. I not only brought Xuzhou sachets, I brought ten products, and it turned out that Xuzhou Business Daily was the most popular. I said: I can not only bring my own full embroidery works, I can also help other non-hereditary heirs to do live streaming, I think I am very satisfied, very accomplished, this is also through the Guangming Network in 2017 to give us training. Because at that time, I knew that I was going to broadcast live, and I would not participate in it, and later I also achieved tens of thousands of fans. Of course, there are not as many fans as Guangming Network, and there are millions of fans, and the traffic is still very large.

We've done that ourselves, and you can look at a set of data. I played for 182 minutes at the longest, and then I stopped, thinking that the number of people was rising, you couldn't get down, and it was rude to broadcast more people. So it's been talking about it. People say you talk for three hours, you are tired after doing three hours, what did you talk about in three hours? I talked about how to get into the Tsinghua Academy of Fine Arts, how to learn calligraphy and painting, how to be a non-hereditary heir, and finally talked about my father and my mother. There is always something to talk about for three hours of live broadcasting, and then talk about the culture of the Forbidden City, oriental aesthetics, color energy, qipao etiquette, etc., and talk about all the content. In fact, the content of the book itself is all moved to the Internet, and there is no need to publish the book after the lecture.

Intangible Cultural Heritage is oral tradition, it is a living inheritance. Intangible Cultural Heritage is popular because it belongs to content anchors, and everyone now pays more attention to content anchors. My best record is 22,000 people, why are there so many people? Because of my aunt, the fourth generation of non-genetic heirs at the national level, I pulled my aunt on the live broadcast. As a result, my aunt sat there without speaking, and then there were so many people that everyone wanted to come in and see what the fourth generation looked like and what they would say.

This is the online I did, the member mall is my screenshot, put our qipao on it, and also cooperate with the Forbidden City cultural and creative brand. There is a delicate pillow made for other heirs, and it also helps them make online. Naran Academy pays for online knowledge, allowing everyone to learn the art of full embroidery online, which are all online tools.

Today's statement has been out of rhythm, based on what I actually happened. I think that although the epidemic has brought us a crisis, it has also brought us business opportunities, and this business opportunity is to use new media and self-media to do a good job in publicity and products. Do a good job in our products and character, then the brand will also do a good job. The Naran brand has been doing it for about 8 years, but I've been in the business for 22 years, and I don't think any exploration is right or wrong, as long as we take the first step. As long as our original intention is altruistic, I am good for you, for more people, for everyone,then this will be recognized. The best business model is also altruistic behavior, I believe that all non-genetic inheritors will unite as one, spark, innovation and development, not to disappoint the mission, thank you for the recognition, trust and invitation of the leaders of Guangming Network and Guangming Daily, and also thank all the leaders who help non-genetic inheritors, help us, protect us, help us develop, help us guide the way to give us opportunities, so that Chinese local brands have such a good voice, have such a good power, have such a good stage to show Chinese culture, Chinese brand, thank you again.

Source: Guangming Network