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<h3 style="margin-top:0;"><a style="font-weight: 500; font-size: 21px;line-height: 30px; margin-top:25px; margin-bottom: 10px;" href="http://u.osu.edu/mclc/2016/05/09/artisan-retreats-to-chinas-past/" target="_blank">Artisan retreats to China’s past</a></h3>
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<p>Source: Sinosphere, NYT (5/8/16)<br />
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/10/world/asia/china-blue-miao-dye.html">In Sichuan Province, an Artisan Retreats to China’s Past</a><br />
<a class="link_cn" title="点击查看本文中文版" href="http://cn.nytstyle.com/culture/20160509/t09chinamiao/" target="_blank">点击查看本文中文版</a> <a class="link_en" title="Read in Chinese" href="http://cn.nytstyle.com/culture/20160509/t09chinamiao/" target="_blank">Read in Chinese</a><br />
By JONAH M. KESSEL</p>
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<strong>VIDEO:</strong><em> A Dyeing Life, Disillusioned with China’s urban dream, a young man set off on a 15-year walk and rediscovered his family’s ethnic Miao traditions.</em></p>
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<p id="story-continues-1" class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="169" data-total-count="169">MINGYUE, China — I once saw a photo of a <a href="http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/m/guizhou/2016-04/01/content_24231228.htm">man with blue hands</a>. They belonged to an artisan textile dyer, an ethnic <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1987/05/25/world/tangqiao-journal-a-1000-year-old-culture-with-few-tomorrows.html">Miao</a> who goes by the name Han Shan, or Cold Mountain.</p>
<p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="157" data-total-count="326">Intrigued, I requested a meeting. Han Shan said to meet him at an ancient Buddhist monastery in western Sichuan Province, on the edge of the Tibetan Plateau.</p>
<p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="151" data-total-count="477">“To put it simply, to us dyeing means life,” he said in the courtyard of the monastery, as we sipped tea under a full moon. I asked him to explain.</p>
<p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="48" data-total-count="525">Speaking in the third person, he told his story.</p>
<p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="334" data-total-count="859">He described a boy who grew up in a village in the mountains of Guizhou Province and the textile dyeing tradition of the Miao people. While other ethnic groups in southern China also use natural dyes, the<a title="Zhongyixueyuan article (in Chinese). " href="http://www.zhongyixueyuan.com/landian/2015/1219/880.html">Miao dye</a> is known for its vibrant blue color, which comes from what Han Shan called the “blue herb,” or <a href="http://www.glasshouseworks.com/baphicacanthus-cusia-suia">baphicacanthus cusia</a>.</p>
<p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="231" data-total-count="1090">At 18, when it was time to further his education, Han Shan, like many young Chinese, moved to a big city, Chengdu, in Sichuan, with hopes of a better future. But after a year, he had become disillusioned with China’s urban dream.</p>
<p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="192" data-total-count="1282">One day, he decided to walk away from the city. Literally. He set off on foot, with no specific destination, let alone purpose. It would become a journey of more than 2,000 miles and 15 years.</p>
<p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="118" data-total-count="1400">“I wanted to explore an unknown world,’’ he said. “To put it simply, I started walking because I was bored.”</p>
<p id="story-continues-2" class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="283" data-total-count="1683">In the years that he walked across Tibet, Xinjiang, Gansu, Ningxia and Yunnan, nearly <a href="http://www.stats.gov.cn/tjsj/ndsj/2014/zk/html/Z0201e.htm">445 million people moved from China’s countryside</a> to the city. Average <a href="http://www.stats.gov.cn/tjsj/ndsj/2014/indexeh.htm">incomes jumped</a> to nearly $8,000, from less than $1,000 a year. For most people, life had rapidly transformed for the better.</p>
<p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="52" data-total-count="1735">But not for Han Shan. He remained in China’s past.</p>
<p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="97" data-total-count="1832">When asked how he spent his time over those 15 years, he decided it would be best to demonstrate.</p>
<p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="239" data-total-count="2071">The next day, we set off through tea fields, bamboo forests and mountain paths. Along the way, he picked wildflowers, explaining their properties. “This flower can be used as a red dye,” he said, throwing one into a basket on his back.</p>
<p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="270" data-total-count="2341">In Han Shan’s view, China’s modernization has come at a price: Society has lost its connection with nature. “We are developing so fast, we have forgotten where we came from,” he said. “Materialism is one of the core things that keep people away from nature.”</p>
<p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="176" data-total-count="2517">For him, this carries dangers: “In Taoism we say: After the moon waxes, it wanes. Prosperity is the prelude to decline. Everything collapses when it reaches such extremes.”</p>
<p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="271" data-total-count="2788">His answer to China’s materialistic society has been to retreat to this village, Mingyue, on the outskirts of Chengdu, where he cultivates a simple life. Ironically, perhaps, he survives by selling the clothing he dyes to the same people he considers too materialistic.</p>
<p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="316" data-total-count="3104">The dyeing tradition was passed to him from his mother and to her, from many generations of Miao before. Now Han Shan has carried the tradition from Guizhou to Mingyue, where artists and free spirits like himself are creating a new space for themselves. Now, even some local villagers have taken up the dyeing trade.</p>
<p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="232" data-total-count="3336">Urbanites armed with selfie poles and shiny new cars seeking a weekend getaway drop by to buy the naturally made clothes. Their purchases are putting food in Han Shan’s stomach, a roof over his head and a smartphone in his pocket.</p>
<p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="265" data-total-count="3601" data-node-uid="1">The natural dyes may have represented life to the Miao people, a connection to the natural world, but now those same dyes are Han Shan’s actual lifeline — his livelihood. Even those willing to walk thousands of miles cannot entirely avoid materialism’s reach.</p>
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<p><em>Follow Jonah M. Kessel on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/jonah_kessel">@jonah_kessel</a>.</em></p>
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by <a href="mailto:denton.2@osu.edu">denton.2@osu.edu</a> on May 9, 2016 </div>
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