Ethnic Embroidery of Qiang – A Miracle in Chinese Folk Art (4)

Paper-cutting and embroidery are both folk industrial art forms of China, they both are indivisible parts of Chinese folk culture. As a wonderful art miracle of Qiang nation culture, Qiang embroidery, in terms of design, color, form or stitch styles, are all imbued with rich deposits of the ancient Qiang nation’s millennium culture and Qiang people’s ideas for life.

The author believes that the merits and meanings to dig out the Qiang nation’s folk embroidery and paper cutting art are not only exists in art scope, for us it’s undoubtedly valuable and significant to learn more about the history of this nation and be aware of the relationships between the Qiang folk art and that of other nations.

Qiang nation, also be called "the nation stay in clouds ", mainly live together in the Mao county of Aba prefecture, Wenchuan county and Li county, as well as the Beichuan autonomous county of Qiang nation in Mianyang city in Sichuan province China. "Qiang Embroidery" is a subsistent heritage of Qiang nation culture that most lively so far and closest to Qiang nation people’s life, it also is the best art communication bridge to the real-world, its forms, color matching and stitching styles are featured with significant ethnic characteristics.

Qiang nation people’s costume are gorgeous as well as simple, and whether men or women in Qiang nation are all prefer to wearing headscarves, they are accustomed to wear long linen gowns that woven by themselves, wear long cloth gowns, coats, sheepskin vests too, and ”Yunyun shoes" (a sort of Qiang nation’s embroidered cloth shoes) on feet. A variety of geometric patterns of embroidery are familiar on Qiang women's clothes and they usually wearing silver jewelry such as earrings, silver plates and so on, and wearing embroidered shoes with sharp hook toes. Men in Qiang nation generally tie hanging knives and leather wallets on the waist, they wearing fabric shoes or straw sandals, and wrapping wool puttees, also with waist belts tied on. Today, in areas close to the cities and towns of Han people, affected by the Han people’s clothing, Qiang people mostly wearing Han apparels and only wearing Qiang costumes in holidays.

Through the changes of history and turns of times, with the developing of Chinese cities, modern people favorite for going after changes and curious about adventures, as life styles and aesthetic concepts transformed, traditional folk embroidery appeared in cities from the countryside gradually, not only the sentiments and aspirations of citizen members have been infiltrated with embroidery art, but also thousands of families effected by and began to practice the skill of embroidery together.

Qiang folk art could switched to response the times, thus naturally to regain a new life. In particular, as in this prosperous millennium, people greet the occasion and are all eager to be rich, the embroidery art should to catch the popular fancy and focus on displaying the connotations of people’s hopes that praying for rich, profit, good luck and safety. So, as served as a national product, Qiang embroidery could be descended and developed at the same time. Therefor, we can conclude that there is potential large market for the national folk art’s enhancement and development.

In 21st century the most promoted idea we referred is innovation, we believe that based on maintaining the Qiang embroidery’s traditional essences and integrated with our rich and profound culture deposits and modern styles, thus produced works combined with modern fashion elements, we are able to obtain a broader space for development and display Qiang embroidery art’s unique charms.

Ethnic Embroidery of Qiang – A Miracle in Chinese Folk Art (3)

Qiang's ethnic folk art are rooted in China's ancient history and folk culture, applied with colorful silk threads and cotton color threads, Qiang nation's peoples created various embroidery patterns and images such as flowers and fruits, fowls and beasts, pines, bamboos, plums, chrysanthemums, a mass of blossom, Harmony in Water and Fish and so on. In those simple artistic forms, rich connotations are contained and displayed out.

Women in Qiang nation are all good at embroidery work, which is one of essential skills that Qiang nation women experienced, and it's also a main rule to measure whether a Qiang nation girl is intelligent, dexterous and diligent or not. Women in Qiang are often be taught by their elderships to practice embroidery skill hardly when they are still a little girl. When they are in their 6 or 7-year old, the mother will began to teach her daughter to learn the embroidery skill, so when the daughter grew in her marriage age, she usually has become a skilled embroidery master, and when a man in Qiang nation going to pursue for a wife, the basic requirement is the girl should having grasped the embroidery skill well, if the girl are not skilled with embroidery work, the man would not like her. As a result, no woman in Qiang nation could not do embroidery job.

Women in Qiang nation commonly according to the intention person to choose the embroidery image pattern, for example, image patterns of "Fu", "Lu", "Shou" and so on are mostly designed for the elderly, and hereby to wish good health and longevity of the elderly; For children, images to against evil spirits would be picked mostly, and thus to bless healthy growth of children, and flower patterns would be choose also to imply children’s good health and favorable growth.

Young girl usually embroidered cigarettes bag for her lover, there are two pattern designs are most familiar, one is "The Mandarin duck plays with Water", the other is "The Swallows flying wing to wing from winter to spring". Both the two embroidery patterns are implies to love each other forever and stay together forever, and that is so-called "loves are contained in the sachet".

Served as a part of Qiang's ethnic culture, Qiang's ethnic embroidery bearing Qiang nation's people's love to the nature, their yearns for a better life, which are all displayed on their embroidered apparels, to show their rich regional culture and folk customs from one glance side. It can be said that the Qiang's folk embroidery and paper-cut art are visual carriers of Qiang's ethnic culture, they are direct and aesthetic symbolic expressions of this age-old ethnic groups' customs and lifestyles.


Qiang nation's "Yunyun shoes" is the most characteristic embroidered shoes, which are made with fabric and in a boat shape, with a little raised shoe toes and thicker soles, clouds images embroidered on the shoe uppers, it’s durable and wearable, is a typical lyric-by embroidery.

Not only with spirit appeal, but also actual practicality, this kind of art form congealed Qiang nation people's simple desires of blessing an auspicious future and a better life, and its culture characters extended whereby. This character is not only belongs to the Qiang nation, but also belongs to all Chinese working people.

Ethnic Embroidery of Qiang – A Miracle in Chinese Folk Art (2)

Qiang ethnic minority is one ancient nation in our Chinese ethnic family. For thousands of years, together with the other members of our big folk family, the ethnic minority of Qiang have created the Chinese nation's great splendid civilizations.

From the nomadic times to the farming times, from ancient times until today, The Qiang nation has experienced countless glory and honor, also suffered from hardships and tribulations. They always keep the Chinese nation’s fine qualities of hard-working, kind-hearted, simple and unadorned. In the mountains on the northwest Sichuan, between the canyons, they spread over and descended toughly from generation to generation, to retain a special, ancient folk culture gene in China.


Embroidery is a kind of traditional Chinese handicraft that using needles to draw various color threads go between fabrics and created drawings on it. The various embroidery patches and embroidered image patterns on Qiang nation people’s apparels are all belong to the traditional Qiang’s ethnic folk arts and crafts, which has a long history.

As to the production means, Qiang’s ethnic embroidery were produced by various individual families, also is through this method to achieve following and continuation traditionally. It is a unique art created own by Qiang nation’s people, which is imbued with their wisdoms and originalities.


Qiang’s ethnic embroidery works full of free imaginations and followed regular norms at same time, it is a sort of art creation that featured with merits of spontaneity, amateurism and self-entertainment. In the long history of development, Qiang’s ethnic embroidery formed its unique aesthetic styles, color specifications and functional forms naturally, also folk and self-embodied with national folk art rules which has aesthetic values.

As to the function, Qiang’s ethnic embroidery mainly used for decorating people’s coats and skirts, shoes, head towels, belts, ribbons, bands, straps, cuffs, pants, trousers bodies, shoe-uppers, insoles, pillowcases, handkerchiefs, clothing edges, sleeves and sachets, from these art patterns we can view the history line of Qiang’s ethnic costume culture.

As long as to do a bit statistics, we can learn that there are over 100 kinds of embroidery patterns merely in Qiang’s ethnic apparels, that is really colorful! Containing Qiang nation people’s fine aspirations for a better life, these exquisite embroidery works created by fine techniques are simple, rigorous, arranged ingenious and reasonable, also using moderate colors, thus to integrate the aesthetic forms and functional forms naturally: Not only for wearing beautiful, but also wearable, and the use lift extended consequently.

As per to Qiang’s ethnic embroidery, the aesthetic and practical functions of which could not be separated sharply. The reason is referring the practical function, to increase its wearable quality only is a primary step; in a deeper sense, those gorgeous and colorful image patterns on Qiang’s ethnic embroidery actually congealed Qiang nation people’s praying and blessing for life, which reflected their dreams of beyond reality.

As the image patterns they selected: fishes, flowers and birds, worms, fowls and beasts, figures, fruits and melons, flowers, ‘Fortunes smile upon and Favor you’, Treasures Fill the Home, Hundreds of birds visit Phoenix, all these designs are profound and lifelike. Although done with some geometric or other forms of transforming treatment, but are closely related to their reality all along, and the starting point of their ideas for a better life is just existed in such a reality of survival.