On July 16, 2021, the reporter came to Qingyang Renmin Xiangbao Museum to interview Liu Lanfang. Just stepping into the Qingyang Renmin Sachet Museum, I saw a woman dressed in a smoky blue cheongsam with her hair neatly tied behind her head, introducing the sachets in the museum to tourists, and she was Liu Lanfang, the inheritor of the embroidery technique of Qingyang Sachet, an intangible cultural heritage of Gansu Province.
Liu Lanfang is a Qingyang native, from the age of 8 with her grandmother and mother to learn sachet embroidery, from 2006 Qingyang sachet was included in the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage list to today, Liu Lanfang not only built the Qingyang Sachet Embroidery Intangible Cultural Heritage Poverty Alleviation Employment Workshop, leading poor households and left-behind women living in difficulty out of poverty, so that more people understand the Qingyang Sachet, inherit the sachet culture, but also explore a qingyang sachet market development path. She has always adhered to the pure hand sewing of sachets, and every year there are more than a dozen innovative sachet works. Her works "Donkey Dare To Be" and "Golden Jade Full Hall" are very popular with people.
Liu Lanfang's "Donkey Dare to Be" Qu Qingqing/Photo
Practice cultural inheritance with admiration
"We live in the books of merit of our ancestors." It is the sentence that Liu Lanfang has said the most when telling her story.
When inheriting the embroidery skills of sachets, Liu Lanfang found that the embroidery method of the older generation mainly pursued the use of embroidery to restore the most authentic state of life. In the past, at least three color transitions were used when embroidering flowers, and the most realistic appearance of the natural world was restored by a gradient technique, the yin and yang sides of a petal under the sun, and the difference in color between the new leaves and the old leaves.
Once at the Qingyang Cultural Training Conference, Liu Lanfang's lover Zhang Renmin met Yu Lianfeng, and when Liu Lanfang asked her for embroidery, she learned a new embroidery method of flower heart. "Her embroidered works filled my heart with emotion and admiration, it was emotional and verbal, and I seemed to see the beauty of her heart when she embroidered." When talking about Teacher Yu's compilation of minor tunes and poems for the embroidered works, Liu Lanfang said that she would copy these down. In the process of learning from the older generation of teachers, Liu Lanfang also saw a lot of creative sachets.
Speaking of this, Liu Lanfang showed reporters a gourd-shaped paste insect scented bag. "In the past, there was a dialectical relationship, testing whether an embroidered woman and a daughter-in-law were clever or not." Speaking, Liu Lanfang took out the sachet to introduce to us, this sachet is gourd-shaped, there is a butterfly in the center, the butterfly wings are open in a flying posture, but its belly is connected to the head and the body of the gourd. The test of the embroidery girl's skills is that the butterfly wings and the gourd are made of the same piece of cloth and cannot be sewn separately.
"This is the strength of the older generation, seemingly simple but contains great wisdom, now there are so few people who can embroider this, even if I know the mystery, I can't embroider it." 」 Liu Lanfang pointed to the stupid insect scented bag and said.
Liu Lanfang introduced the "confused worm" incense packet to reporters Qu Qingqing/Photo
Tell the Story of China well in difficult exploration
When founding Qingyang Qihuang Culture Communication Co., Ltd., Liu Lanfang experienced many difficulties. In 2002, Liu Lanfang and her lover Zhang Renmin founded Qingyang Qihuang Culture Communication Co., Ltd. At this time, Qingyang sachets did not have much sales, local differences were large, and most of them were rural women who would be hand-embroidered, which was difficult to achieve systematic management, and it was difficult at the beginning of the company's establishment.
Once, Liu Lanfang and Xuzhou's Cao's sachet cooperated, the other party asked to fill the spices they provided according to the proportion, Liu Lanfang gave this work to his most trusted employees to do, but when handing over the order, he found that the sachets were unqualified, and the spices in the sachets were not filled according to the proportions. Liu Lanfang could only apologize while trying to find a way to remedy it, but the order was still yellow. "I've always been strong and never shed tears, but that time I couldn't help but cry." Recalling this, Liu Lanfang looked down and smiled embarrassedly.
The company's repeated problems made her feel confused, but Liu Lanfang did not give up. She carried sachets to the market, participated in the domestic folk fairs, intangible cultural heritage exhibitions, cultural expositions, went to Beijing, Hangzhou, Shanghai and other places to visit dozens of folklore experts, the Qingyang sachets for secondary improvement, gradually, sachet sales increased greatly, the brand has a popularity.
In April 2015, Liu Lanfang was invited to the United States again to give lectures at five famous universities, including Yale University, to tell the story of Qingyang sachets, and to push the sachets of the Loess Plateau to the world stage step by step. When Liu Lanfang talked about the embroidery lady singing songs for her embroidered sachets and using birds as a metaphor for the wanderer who left home, a captain of the American middle school baseball team was very touched and hugged her, "In my influence, Chinese rarely creates herself, mostly copying." But I see the wisdom of Chinese working women and the greatness of Chinese mothers in the embroidery lady you are talking about. Recalling what he said, Liu Lanfang was very emotional, and it turned out that Qingyang Xiangbao not only undertook the role of inheriting intangible cultural heritage, but also reflected the wisdom of Chinese women and told people chinese stories.
After returning to China, Liu Lanfang began to excavate the culture of the inheritance of the sachet, learning from various aspects such as totems, "I want to make our sachet go further and let the world know our sachet." Liu Lanfang touched the sachet in her hand and said. At Easter, Liu Lanfang made a batch of pumpkin sachets, embroidered a Qin cavity face on them, and improved the design pattern of Qingyang sachets, so that Qingyang sachets have a "Chinese flavor" and have "international style", which better promotes the sachets to go abroad and go to the world.
Liu Lanfang was interviewed by Qu Qingqing/Photo
Watchman explores a new way out of the sachet heritage
If young people do not accept and inherit, the culture of sachets will be lost in the wave of the development of the times. Geographical restrictions, rapid social and economic development, and the intensification of fast food culture have not only impacted the Qingyang xiangbao culture, but also impacted Liu Lanfang's heart.
Qingyang sachet is originally a product of the working people's life, should not let it become a luxury goods hanging high, become a necessity of life in order to give the intangible cultural heritage a steady stream of vitality. "Although there are many sachet inheritors in Longyuan now, we can still feel the loss of sachet culture." Liu Lanfang said.
In Liu Lanfang's class last year at Lanzhou University of Technology to teach qingyang folk art heritage, a Fujian student also put forward the theory about the north and south of Qingyang sachet, "I am very surprised, Fujian children know the north-south theory of Qingyang sachet, but our two children from Qingyang do not understand sachet." "Therefore, how to attract young people to join the sachet inheritance, let qingyang sachet get rid of the ethnic groups that are attached to the traditional lifestyle and limitations, and let the traditional sachet keep pace with the times and become younger, is Liu Lanfang's most concerned about the problem, and it is also the way out she has been exploring now."
(The authors Ren Zhanchao, Qu Qingqing and Haddan Dan are graduate students of the School of Journalism and Communication of Lanzhou University, the authors Ru Jia and Yang Mengtian are undergraduates of the School of Journalism and Communication of Lanzhou University; the instructors Zhou Zhaoyu and Du Xingyan are teachers of the School of Journalism and Communication of Lanzhou University)