"Traditional culture can be truly figured out through experience and touch. My wife and I run a grass linen-themed SPA club in Rongchang District. We hope that the Rongchang ramie, the intangible cultural heritage, will be revived as it is passed down and that more people of Chinese origin will find their cultural identity," said Chen Jifeng, an Indian of Chinese origin.
Rongchang ramie linen is a linen cloth hand-woven from high-quality ramie. It is thus named the cloth for summer. The skill has been passed down in the local area for thousands of years. In 2008, Rongchang ramie-making skill was listed among the national intangible cultural heritage.
Chen Jifeng and his wife (Photo provided to iChongqing)
Chen Jifeng's grandfather, born in southern China's Guangdong Province, went to India for work and married a local in the 1950s. Chen Jifeng is a quarter Chinese. In 2015, he met Tang Yi, a girl from Rongchang, at a party, and the two fell in love. After they got married in 2019, Chen Jifeng gave up his work overseas and moved to Rongchang, and his destiny became intertwined with grass linen work.
Like China, India has a long history of textiles and many linen products. Chen Jifeng has a natural affinity for grass linen, and his wife's family is engaged in grass linen-related business, providing him with great convenience for innovation and inheritance.
"I felt grass linen was natural and pure for the first time when I touched it," said Chen Jifeng. "Grass linen is made by hand and nature. It is chemical-free. The unique colors and textures are typical of nature. All of my foreign friends think that grass linen is amazing after hearing me out," he said with a laugh.
Rongchang ramie in the process (Photo provided to iChongqing)
Traditional culture needs to be passed on and seen by the world. Chen Jifeng and his wife had new ideas on injecting vitality into the traditional skill.
At present, the "big health industry" is emerging and developing rapidly in China. They seized the opportunity to build a SPA club in Rongchang and integrated the antibacterial and breathable functions of grass linen into it so as to bring a better experience and endow the traditional intangible cultural heritage with a new look.
Chen Jifeng believes that people now tend to obtain knowledge of intangible cultural heritage through the Internet, and it is not easy to find any traces of it in real life. "Many people feel that the intangible cultural heritage is far away from life, and they do not care about it. It seems to only exist in the local list of intangible cultural heritage."
Tang Yi said, "Our SPA club is an attempt" in hopes of bringing intangible cultural heritage closer to people and into all aspects of life. Folk intangible cultural heritage needs to go out of its "small world," and grass linen should build a bridge between people and intangible cultural heritage.
Rongchang ramie (Photo provided to iChongqing)
At present, there are hundreds of kinds of ramie products in Rongchang, such as printed and dyed cloth, tourist souvenirs, cultural and creative products, bedding, home accessories, and grass linen costumes. Orders for grass linen continue to rise as summer approaches.
Now, about three million pieces of grass linen are demanded in the international market per year and are mainly sold to Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Southeast Asia, and other regions, with about 40% for funeral supplies in Japan and South Korea. In 2020, for example, there are 13 grass linen export enterprises in Rongchang District, with an annual export value of more than 48 million yuan.
Chen Jifeng is also exploring the Indian market and trying to sell the cloth to Indian merchants online. "I haven’t stayed in Chongqing for a long time, and I am not very capable on my own. But I want to attract more young people, especially those abroad of Chinese origin, to the intangible cultural heritage with the new attempt, and explore the wisdom of the Chinese nation from traditional culture."