Contact me to request a brochure mailed directly to you. Nadine Sanders,
PO Box 268, Chehalis, WA 98532 nadine-AT-singingweaver-dot-com Tel: 360 740 0914
This tour takes us to Yunnan, Guizhou, and Guangxi, three southwest provinces that are home to more than half of China’s 56 ethnic groups. Highlighting seldom-visited areas in these provinces, our travels will provide a unique glimpse into ancient ways of living that still exist in a nation that has only begun opening doors to its remote territories. Inspired by discoveries during recent Textile Odysseys, we will lead you to rural, out-of-the-way places where, despite the modernization of China in its big cities, many time honored traditions remain and dedicated artisans maintain connections with their ancestral roots through their dress and textile traditions.
Yunnan: The frontier province of Yunnan borders Burma, Vietnam, and Laos and is home to twenty-five ethnic groups. Traveling from the capital city of Kunming to the Ailao Mountains, we will be in the midst of spectacular rice terraces, ingeniously engineered and hand-sculpted by the Hani people in a tradition that dates back 2,500 years. Here, in an area that remains unknown to mainstream tourism, we will have the rare opportunity to mingle among local ethnic groups in their villages and town markets. As they move about in the rhythm of their daily lives, we will see many people dressed in their distinctive group costumes: among them are the Yi and Zhuang with their eye-catching “fanny flaps”: the Dai with their colorful embroidered leggings: the Yao Lanten with their bright pink, long fringe and their celestial crowns; and the Hani with their finely trimmed, braided borders and silver studded garments.
Guizhou and Guangxi: Flying east from Kunming to Guiyang, we travel through beautiful karst mountain landscapes to remote towns and villages in Guizhou and Guangxi, where we will meet with artisans in their homes and see demonstrations of their textile processes. We will see the fine, delicate batik work of artisans from some of the less publicized ethnic groups such as the Four Seal Miao, the Big Flower Miao, and the Short Horn Miao. A visit to an exquisite private collection of Chinese ethnic minority costumes will be supplemented with demonstrations of various embroidery techniques and the opportunity to participate in a hands-on workshop. As we continue our odyssey from western and eastern Guizhou to Guilin, we will experience the simple life of villages still graced by ancient architecture such as beautiful traditional wooden or stone houses, painted Drum Towers, and Wind and Rain Bridges. In this tranquil setting, we will meet master artisans from the Miao, Bouyei, Dong, and Yao minorities, each skilled at creating their own distinctive clan costumes. Utilizing a variety of specialized techniques including indigo-dyeing, pleating, calendaring, embroidery, folded piecework, weaving, appliqué, and silk-felting, the makers of these garments express a profound pride and connection to their cultural legacy.
LEADER: Serena Lee is a Chinese-American textile artist who has spent over five years in Asia since 1973. Decades of travel and research led her to many remote areas in over a dozen Asian countries. As a culmination of her lifelong interest in textile arts and minority cultures, Serena founded Textile Odyssey in 2000 with the idea of developing innovative tours focused on connecting cultures through textiles as a universal expression of both cultural and personal art. A published photographer and an international lecturer, Serena has presented papers on the ethnic dress of the minorities in northern Vietnam and southwest China at many venues including Stanford University, the 16th Congress of the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences, the Textile Society of America Symposium 2008, and the de Young Museum. She is on the board of the Textiles Art Council at the de Young Museum and on the Humanities Advisory Council of the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles. After four recent trips to southwest China since Oct. 2007 and a much earlier trip in 1984, she finds China more fascinating than ever!