straw-woven ware

Straw crafts in Ningbo enjoys a great reputation. In 1925, the French merchant Yongxing Foreign Firm learned that women in eastern Zhejiang were ingenious and good at weaving straw hats, so it bought hypericum from the Philippines and distributed it to women in the western suburbs of Ningbo and the Changhe River in Cixi for knitting. Sure enough, the gold silk straw hat is as light as a cloud and as bright as snow, which meets the needs of the international market. So domestic businessmen and foreign businessmen compete for distribution and export in large quantities. After liberation, a straw hat processing factory was established in Changhe Township, Cixi, the "hometown of leather weaving". In 1954, it was renamed as Cixi Golden Silk Straw Factory. Most of them organized family sideline businesses to engage in extra work, and about 70,000 people nearby engaged in straw hat weaving all the year round. There are also many women in Yinxian and the suburbs of Ningbo who weave golden silk straw hats as their household sideline. Ningbo is rich in straw resources, including mat grass, straw, salty grass, cattail grass, Chinese alpine rush, corn husks and so on. Local people have always had traditional weaving skills, besides straw hats, they also weave grass baskets, handbags, grass fans, grass slippers, grass tea mats and other patterns.
Reprinted with attribution： https://cnlocality.com/(Chinese Specialty Products)