English

True Stories in the Beautiful World of Sericulture and Silk Weaving

时间:2019-11-29 来源: 本站

The Oriental Splendor - Silk consists of three chapters, namely the Kingdom of Silk, the Splendid frozen in time, the Route of silk. The three chapters are themed by belief in sericultural production originated from China, inheritance of silk weaving technique and silk culture exchange, respectively. It’s rich in content, the plot is realistic, and it thoroughly interprets an idea of China’s silk and the world from a special perspective in a special way.

Just as its name implies, the Kingdom of Silk is famous for sericulture. The southern area of the Yangtze River is a place where silkworm breeding and mulberry growing started in China, and silks were produced and distributed. The history has left us an evidence for the origin of world’s silk here, namely the silk relic unearthed from Qianshanyang Site in Huzhou that is repeatedly spoken of but hardly ever to see. Nowadays, the age-old silkworm customs having passed down for thousands of years still intertwine with the life of local people.

微信图片_20190508104621.png

The site for starting up the Oriental Splendor - Silk is exactly Huzhou that is a mysterious place. What is focused on first is the representative of silkworm and mulberry customs having passed down from the ancient time—the Silk Flower Temple Fair. People gather at the temple fair for sharing the common belief, and the belief in silkworm and mulberry is the spiritual symbol of silkworm kingdom. Thus, the language of light and shadow is employed to capture the footprints were and are left here with the passage of time and the unique memory spreading here. Man, camera, light and shadow work together to narrate the lingering spirit of silkworm raisers who concern themselves with nature and physical properties of silkworm and mulberry.

The 63-aged Gu Shuie in the documentary is one of the leading roles in the Kingdom of Silk. She is one silkworm woman in the temple fair. On that day, she got up around 4:00am for dressing up, and headed to Hanshan. Hanshan Silk Flower Temple Fair is a traditional folk cultural activity popular in Hanshan, Shanlian, Deqing County and Xinshi. According to historical records, the activity can be dated back to the Tang Dynasty, which was organized on the Tomb-Sweeping Day every year, and at which people gathered to worship silkworm god acted by silkworm woman. According to the custom of the place of silkworm, only the elder of the family who have raised good silkworms is qualified for this.

微信图片_20190508103551.png

As silkworm women were heading to Hanshan, the sacrificial rites similar to the ceremony of meeting the god competition were commenced. Before setting foot on the Silk Flower Temple Fair ground, silkworm women must go to the silkworm temple next to the Song Tower at the peak to make pilgrimages first, then put in package their own first silkworm egg papers of the current year, and circle the mountain once to make the silkworm eggs be infected with the atmosphere of the silkworm god in Hanshan and pray for a good harvest of silkworm cocoon. This reflects the collective consciousness of the silk kingdom, which is a unique piety in which gratitude and praying intertwine. The piety is extended by Ms. Shi who makes a living by silkworm breeding as recorded in the documentary. Sericulturist treat silkworms as children, which perhaps interprets the origin of “silkworm baby”.

As an the documentary says, “The end for silkworms’s life is the beginning of silk yarns”. That the Kingdom of Silk records the life of spring silkworms actually carries a foreshadowing of starting a bustling and beautiful vision. Thus, from the the Splendid frozen in time, we can see traditions seeming to approaching from a distance and their original appearance. It appears in metropolis, and is grafted to and integrated with fashion. What the the Splendid frozen in time shows is a beautiful story like Chuang Chou Dreaming a Butterfly. A costume designer named Deborah Milner in London employed Chinese silk to enter the Global Qipao Design Contest in Hangzhou, and she interpreted her design to be an affectionate talk between western thought and the home of silk. Different from the British designer, a local enterprise called Zheng Xing Xiang carries the handicraft memory of silk qipao via its history of centuries, with a view to calling for Bao Wenqi (intangible cultural heritage inheritor of Li Min Chinese-style Garment Factory), Guo Pei (a fashion designer) and so on to appreciate, create an artistic image, study and follow silk qipao. The documentary also records the close cooperation between Dai Jian (the intangible cultural heritage inheritor of Nanjing Brocade) and Xu Dinglong of Wensli Group for a purpose of telling people that the ancient master hand survives today while restoring the beauty of ancient dragon robe. That Tu Hongyan, the president of Wensli Group, made contributions to the appearance of blue-and-white porcelain garment at the Olympic Games and reached cooperation with a producer in Lyons makes the world look at Chinese silk with new eyes. Besides, the collections of Chinese silk relics in Singapore Peranakan Museum and Antonio Ratti Foundation in Italy also are included in the the Splendid frozen in time. In my viewpoint, this reflects another kind of vision of documentary, namely world civilization cannot forget preservation of silk culture in living state and important historical collections while sharing the inheritance, restoration and technical innovation of silk culture. It would naturally set people thinking. How should a person spend his life?

14feb5e6d9511aba8dc340.jpg

In fact, how much the culture of sericulture and silk weaving is inherited and spread and how much is worth commemoration and remembering depends on how we persevere in heading in the right direction. Perhaps, this is the meaning of producing the Route of Silk, following the Kingdom of Silk, the splendid frozen in time: “ Silk Road, once extended by trade and cultural exchanges, still bears the vestiges of ancient civilizations. The travelers are no longer hindered by sandstorms, but they still need wisdom and courage to navigate.” 

The cultural horizon of the Route of Silk, doesn’t avoid the fact that Chinese silk was faced with great hardship in the world’s silk industry pattern, and even faces up to the seditious words that the “silk kingdom” cannot produce the best silk. To respond to the call from the public for changing the situation of outputting semi-finished silk products and raw materials and building top-level silk terminal brands enjoying great prestige in the world, Fei Jianming, with a mentality of “I would rather stay on the branch than being blown off by the north wind” and believing that time waits for no man, started up the Route of Silk, to surpass Italy in respect of silk post-dyeing finishing technology when he was in High Fashion, now it becomes his mission as he holds the post of secretary general of International Silk Union. Another heavy weight introduced in the Route of Silk, with thick and heavy colors is Zhao Feng, the curator of China National Silk Museum, who has cultivated a reserve academic talent team relating to silk research, published a lot of academic works, launched cooperative projects with Metropolitan Museum and the University of Cambridge, and built fashion and cultural brands of Chinese silk jointly with Wang Pengcheng (the founder of “Jingluntang”). By his contributions as set forth above, silk fans in the world are attracted, and China wins respect from the world circle of textile history. Under such a context, the descendants of the “silk kingdom” are given the historic responsibility to prosper Chinese silk unconsciously.

微信图片_20190508112145.png

The core value of documentary is being true, and embellishment essentially is for pursuing realism and triggering thought. The Oriental Splendor - Silk is real and the concentration of the essence of belief, techniques and cultural exchanges of Chinese sericulture over the past 5,000 years. Besides realism and participation, the thing that is more vital is contained in the documentary, namely the passionate devotion of the documentary producer to Chinese silk, and the thought on the future of Chinese silk triggered by extraordinary presentation.