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Weaving a Brighter Future for Traditional Craft
非遗草编｜指尖上传承的艺术

What’s the first thing that pops into your mind when you think of wheat straw?Most people would probably just see it as a pile of waste in a farmer’s field.However, Wu Cui, an intangible cultural inheritor, can turn the straw left over from harvested wheat into beautiful and eye-catching functional artworks.

“The most common materials, such as wheat stalks, corn husks and reeds, once processed by the hands of craftsmen, can be magically transformed,” says Wu, a straw plaiting craftswoman from Helan county, Northwest China’s Ningxia Hui autonomous region.

Straw plaiting is a method of manufacturing daily items or artworks by braiding straw.It was listed as a national intangible cultural heritage in 2008.

“The technique enjoys a profound history in China and has played a significant role in the daily lives of common people, whether it’s wearing slippers or hats made from straw, or using a straw basket or a straw mat,” explains Wu, 28, a sixth-generation inheritor of straw plaiting.

For Wu, her family have provided a lot of support, while the countryside, where she got involved with the craft, is a source of inspiration.
“Immersed in an atmosphere with a passion for the technique, I made the straw-plaiting my job and started from scratch after graduating from university two years ago,” Wu says.

Now, she is working at a company in Beijing that focuses on the promotion of traditional crafts, such as straw plaiting and clay sculpture.

Wu also described her uncle, the fifth-generation inheritor of straw plaiting, as her first teacher.

“As a child I had a penchant for catching grasshoppers and remembered how my uncle taught me to make a grasshopper cage, my first straw-weaving work,” she recalls.

Wu says she is meticulous about planning, production and revision, a practice the young woman adheres to with every piece.Different pieces need different materials, Wu says, adding that products modeled after insects are usually made using leaves from palm trees or reeds, while hats, small baskets, and big animals are mostly made using straw.

A layman might think that the work is just about the actual weaving.According to Wu, however, selection of materials is the first step of a complicated, time-consuming and labor-intensive process that can take weeks, or even months, to complete.

“You need to sketch the piece on paper, which requires drawing skills, and also conceive its three-dimensional structure.Next comes the weaving, shaping and finally the preserving of the work,” Wu adds.

“Even by adhering to that process, it does not mean that you will always create a good piece of work, and the hardest part is to make it lifelike and solid,” Wu says, adding that, to this end, she will take pieces apart and try again.

Wu recalls that, when she was a child, woven straw items could be found almost in every household in the countryside, such as straw hats and straw shoes, because they were practical in everyday life.

“Due to the impact of industrialization, manufactured goods have replaced such products, which yield low profits, and there are only about 100 individuals engaging in the work across the country,” she notes.

“The world has changed, and craftsmen need to transcend practicality and pursue the beauty and artistry of straw culture to help the craft survive and thrive,” she says.

From her perspective, straw plaiting should respond to people’s needs and preferences, while still drawing inspiration from traditional culture.

In today’s fast-paced modern life, people have a desire to embrace nature and find pleasure in it, she says, adding that straw plaiting can meet people’s spiritual and cultural needs.

“By occupying a position in the market and winning the hearts of consumers, more people will understand the culture behind the techniques, and more craftspeople will be encouraged to devote themselves to it as a career,” she adds.

“Thanks to government’s emphasis on precious folk crafts, straw plaiting will have a larger public profile,” she says.

At present, China has established a tiered system of intangible cultural heritage, spanning the national, provincial, municipal and county levels, and it has identified more than 100,000 representative items of each one.

“For straw plaiting to blossom, craftspeople should make a concerted effort to grasp the trends and opportunities of the times to create new and relevant products,” she says.

When asked about her plans, Wu says she aspires to dig deeper into local traditional culture and create cultural creative products by fully leveraging the straw plaiting technique.