Life and Silk,Intertwined

By staff reporter JIAO FENG

SILK is synonymous with China. Chinese people started making the fine fabric around 4,700 years ago, and have been constantly improving their techniques ever since.

The dozen varieties of silk are differentiated from each other essentially by processing techniques. Today, silk is everywhere in our lives. It is in our clothes, scarves, ties, bags – and in some cases even in our bodies in the form of artificial blood vessels and artificial skin.

Among all types of silk, it is brocade that requires the most complicated processing techniques. A jacquard fabric with intricate, multicolored patterns, it was of such value in ancient times that it was occasionally used as a substitute for currency.

Of all the brocade produced over the millennia, the Song Brocade in Suzhou, the Yun Brocade in Nanjing and the Shu Brocade in Sichuan are noted as pinnacles of the craft. The Song Brocade originated in the imperial court in the 12th century. Emperor Gaozong (1107-1187) of the Southern Song Dynasty(1127-1279) promoted the brocade by featuring it in all his courts dress. Every calligraphy and painting mounting in his court wasrequired to be completed in the brocade style.

The Song Brocade prospered from the 14th to the 19th centuries. As the 20th century came around, industrialization and years of war saw the technique fall into disuse, and 800 years of tradition was threatened with extinction.

If every story has its hero, then ours is certainly Qian Xiaoping – the 73 year old is one of the few modern-day custodians of the Song Brocade legacy.

After graduating from Suzhou Silk Technical School at age 19, Qian started working for the Silk Research Institute in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province. There, she brought the techniques of Song Brocade back from the edge of extinction. Later in her career, she helped open the first silk museum in China – the Suzhou Silk Museum, and invented Chinas secondgeneration textile artificial blood vessel.

For her work, Qian has gained renown both at home and overseas. She is the honorary president of the silk museum in Vierzon, France, and is regarded as one of the top four silk experts in the world.

Bringing back song Brocade

China has a long history of silk textile processing, but before the establishment of the Suzhou Silk Technical School (later renamed Suzhou Institute of Silk Textile Technology, and in 1997 integrated into Soochow University), there was no organization doing silk research or experimenting with the fabric. Skills and techniques had been passed down from master to apprentice. And so, after graduating from the newly founded school, Qian Xiaoping became one of the first of a new batch of“silk textile professionals.”

During her school days Qian gradually fell in love with the exquisite, elegant luster of silk. She was amazed that such a marvelous natural material could be transformed into colorful patterns, thin or thick, smooth and soft, or with natural ruffles. From that time, Qians life has been dedicated to silk.

Working at the Suzhou Silk Research Institute gave her the opportunity to fulfill her potential. At the time, the institute was still in its infancy – there was a mountain of archived materials on silk that needed to be studied, and new designs were expected to be produced. But the institute had struggled to find the right personnel to undertake these tasks.

Qian Xiaoping recalled the situation:“All the other designers working there were trained in the master-apprentice mould – they had learnt their skills from their families. They had lots of pragmatic experiences in processing silk, but no one could actually do research and draw layouts. I was the only one who had a systematic education in silk from a professional school.”

At the institute, Qian started to study, analyze, and research brocade, and this gave her a solid foundation for later research on the silk style. The complexly woven fabric with graceful color schemes appealed to her deeply, she says. Later, she went on to design silk works that were much sought-after in the former Soviet Union and some Eastern Europe countries.

In those early days, Qian grew worried about the fate of the Song Brocade tradition. In contrast to other varieties of traditional silk designs, which were enjoying a revival at the time, practitioners of the Song Brocade were virtually non-existent. Even references on the technique were few and far between, and pictures were hard to find.

Qian learnt of the classical rhombic design of Song Brocade in an ancient book, but had never actually seen a piece of it. One day, Qian passed by an antiques store, and out of habit went inside to enquire about Song Brocade. To Qians surprise, the shop owner had in his possession some old fragments of the silk, and one of them was of the rare rhombic pattern. After negotiating with the shopkeeper, she secured the fragment on loan. After much research, analysis and trial-and-error, she managed to produce a sample with all the features of the fragment. Seeing the replica, the shop owner exclaimed, “Song Brocade is back to life.”

Qian continued and expanded her valuable work to retrieve lost brocade crafts. In cooperation with the National Museum of China, and local museums in Xinjiang and Qinghai and other places, Qian duplicated other Song Brocade designs from the Song, Ming and Qing dynasties.

Qian also reinvigorated 11 types of other silk materials. She led a project to reproduce seven silk textiles of the Pre-Qin Period (2100-221 BC) and the Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 220), and also completed what was regarded as a highly challenging task to replicate four fabrics from the Tang Dynasty (618-907). Her works were confirmed by the State Administration of Cultural Heritage as nearly identical to the original items by all measures.

A Museum Dedicated to silk

After many years of working on brocade, Qian Xiaoping came to know first hand the worth of the time-honored silk crafts, the durability of the material and the imperativeness of preservation efforts.

The idea of opening a silk museum first came to her in the 1970s when she was assigned to test and study the hoard of silk clothes unearthed in the Han Dynasty Mawangdui Tomb in Changsha, Hunan Province. The colors on the silk, buried deep underground for 2,000 years, were still vivid and strong.

“Silk originated from China. It was a pity that at the time of the Changsha discovery, China had no silk museum. Silk technicians and masters were becoming fewer and fewer and high-quality silk representing our ancient culture was hard to find. Silk started in Suzhou. I had the idea to build a silk museum there and let people see our countrys ancient silk instead of in damp tombs.”

To advocate her idea for such a museum, Qian rallied support in the silk industry, wrote articles for the media and lobbied the authorities. Her passion and persistence won the day, and in 1985 the Suzhou municipal government approved the building of a silk museum, with Qian Xiaoping heading up the project. Benefiting from a government subsidy of RMB 50,000 and six years of hard work, Chinas first silk museum was opened to the public in 1991.

Medical exploits

It is interesting to note that Qian Xiaoping first won acclaim in a field that is in no way related to silk in normal sense – the medical industry.

In the late 1950s, the Suzhou Silk Research Institute accepted an assignment from the Ministry of Textile and the Ministry of Health to invent artificial blood vessels in partnership with a hospital in Shanghai. Working as Master Technician Jin Chunrongs assistant, Qian Xiaoping was the youngest designer on the project. Research started from scratch – except for a small sampling brought in from abroad, China had no reference or expe- rience in the field at that time.

Under Jins instructions, Qian did extensive and concrete work analyzing the sample, exploring the techniques parameters and procedures, and drafting a procedure to process the raw materials. After simulations and trials, the first generation of artificial blood vessel came into being. Qian Xiaoping spent a further three years as the lead researcher in methods to replace nylon with polyester in the vessels. In 1963 production started.

In 1973, doctors at the Shanghai hospital came to Qian to discuss with her plans to invent a new generation of artificial blood vessels. She was sought out owing to her profound experience, unique perspective and skills in fabric structure design. The hospital suggested inventing new type of blood vessel with improved functions and interior walls that resemble the endothelial cells of a natural blood vessel wall. Qian accepted the proposal and promised to dedicate herself to the task. In the following years, outside her daily work Qian frequented garment factories and spinning mills to undertake research and finally came up with a plan to use a “weaving” method instead of “knitting” method to make cardiovascular prostheses.

In 1979, a sample was created, which proved effective after clinical tests. This second-generation artificial blood vessel from China, successfully patented, won a national award in 1983. In 1986, it won an award at the 14th International Exhibition on Inventions in Geneva, and received a silver medal at the 35th Brussels Eureka Awards for Invention.

Though the medical invention is a grand achievement in Qian Xiaopings career, Song Brocade remained her cardinal occupation and passion. After she retired in 2005, she opened an institute for antique silk reproduction. She also authored a column on silk weaving and dyeing for a series on traditional Chinese crafts that was sponsored by the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

In 2006 Song Brocade was listed in the first batch of national intangible cultural heritages, and Qian Xiaoping was appointed its official “inheritor.” Early this year, her new book Chinese Song Brocade was published. Qian has dedicated her life to the history, vitality and future of silk in China. As she continues to publish books well into her 70s, her remarkable life work isnt over yet.