Week 8 - Hmong Textile Culture

Qiuying Lin (Britney)
ASA 141
Week 8

Because Hmong people passed down their culture orally in the past, textile has become the only valuable channel for us to learn Hmong culture. The Hmong people always emphasize their family value and encourage hardship and person's contribution. Moreover, they developed a migratory lifestyle because of their slash-and-burn farming tradition. And every subgroups have their distinctive costume and will gather together in their New Year celebration. In their history, they first migrated to China and then settled down in Vietnam in the mid-1800s. After the Vietnam war in 1975, Hmong people left Vietnam because of the worry of the revenge from Communists and escaped to other countries. Most of them went to Thailand. Story cloth was created by Hmong refugees living in Thailand, which recorded aspects of Hmong history and culture that could be understood by a boarder audience. This recent form comes from the traditional one pai ntaub. In the past, only women sewed textile. They learned this skill from the last generation when girls were old enough. Women could not wear a skirt without a design on it because textile incorporated different designs representing cultural beliefs, important symbols, the physical environment, and geometric patterns. Textile not only assesses the girls’ character, creativity, and industriousness through the needlework’s quality but also worn by people through their lifespan. But during the refugee period, sewing becomes a tool for economic survival. Hmong people start to integrate traditional reverse applique design on western products. Gradually, in order to make money, men also join this industry and make the sewing process more communal. The textile becomes valuable texts for portraying the lives and struggles of Hmong people to different audiences and is used to preserve their own culture.

I really appreciate Hmong textile. I think this incorporate their ethnic motifs because this tradition is passed down one by one generation. Sewing means to express their unique family value and also women's own value before. Now, it becomes a representation of Hmong and the communal things for the whole Hmong society. It also means hardship for survival through immigrant life. However, Hmong people are sewing less frequently because of the adaptation to a different culture. In addition, Hmong people could not make a living by textile because of the low income. I really resonate with this phenomenon. Many Chinese intangible cultural heritage gradually disappears because of no inheritors. I feel like we have lost a lot of our root culture and our ethnic representations. Thus, It's necessary for Chinese and also Hmong people to preserve our country traditional values and show them which is correlated to our ethnic history and tradition to the world.

At here, Hmong textile is more than fabric and economic survival. It records the Hmong stories through history and expresses the valuable Hmong spirit. It's important for Hmong people to treasure it and pass down to the next generation and forever. I still wonder how to increase the value of Hmong textile and make it possible for Hmong people to make a living?