Stitching new opportunity

Jin Ruirui does Yi embroidery on Yi costumes.  PROVIDED TO TEENS

As a deputy to the 14th National People’s Congress, Jin Ruirui, 33, wore a traditional Yi costume and brought Yi embroidery to this year’s two sessions. Jin is an inheritor of the Yi embroidery of Chuxiong Yi autonomous prefecture, Southwest China’s Yunnan province. She has brought proposals for developing the local embroidery industry and promoting women’s employment.

 Jin was among the first group of college students in her village, but instead of working in big cities, she chose to come back to her hometown to set up her own Yi embroidery company. “My mother raised me with the money she made as an embroiderer. I want to carry on her skills and help more embroiderers who are just like my mother – they might not get much education, but they know well about
our local culture,” said Jin.

Jin went on field trips to many local villages and found that there were many left-behind children with their parents working far away in big cities. “Think about how good it will be if embroidery can bring them enough money so that they can work at home and stay together with their children,” Jin said, remembering how she started her career.

With the support from the local government and the hard work of people like Jin, Yi embroidery has become a growing industry. They train embroiderers and hire designers to make the embroidery pieces more trendy. They hold fashion shows promoting Yi costumes in big cities like Beijing and Shanghai and do business with other provinces and even foreign countries. Jin just got an export order of 6,500 Yi embroidered costumes to the UK last month.

During the past 10 years, more than 60,000 Yi women in Chuxiong have taken part in the local Yi embroidery industry. Their average monthly income grew from about 500 yuan to around 3,000 yuan. “Now, even some men have started to work as embroiderers, taking up about 4 percent of the workforce sta ,” Jin added. “We have made our lives better with our traditional culture and skills.”
 
By GUI QIAN and YUAN DAN, 21st Century Teens


Yi embroidery works by Jin Ruirui PROVIDED TO TEENS

WHAT IS YI EMBROIDERY?
Yunnan is home to about 5 million Yi people. For more than 1,300 years, Yi people have been passing on their embroidery tradition, a form of intangible cultural heritage, according to China Daily.

Yi people sew written characters, totems and nature designs such as flowers, butterflies, birds, tigers and cats, as well as the sun, moon and stars onto costumes.

Now, the Yi embroidery is not only sewn on traditional costumes, but also on modern brand clothing, ornaments, household products like bed covers and cultural and creative products like notebooks.


Yi embroidery works by Jin Ruirui's company PROVIDED TO TEENS

MEASURES TO PROMOTE YI EMBROIDERY
● Yi embroidery standards
The Chuxiong government and local companies unified the logo and production technical standards of handmade Yi embroidery to make sure of their products’quality

● Yi embroidery insurance
If a customer buys something in Jin’s shops and other registered companies
in Chuxiong and finds that it is not handmade, the insurance company will give them their money back.

● Yi embroidery delivery
The Chuxiong government and local companies work together with delivery companies to lower shipping costs. For example, the cost of a small-size Yi embroidery
package decreased from 12 to 7 yuan.

By GUI QIAN and YUAN DAN, 21st Century Teens