The sculptures of Bodhisattvas in the Dunhuang Grottoes, in northwest China's Gansu Province, are often depicted in jiaxie silk dresses.

However, after the Song Dynasty (960-1279), multi-colored designs were gradually replaced by simple indigoes and white, and then gradually the traditional method of printing and dyeing seemed to have disappeared.

But in fact, jiaxie was not extinct; it was just that it was no longer popular and known only to a few people. In the 1950s and 60s, jiaxie quilts were still an essential part of nuptial celebrations in Wenzhou, in east China's Zhejiang Province.

Wenzhou jiaxie was done in plain indigo and white.

In a small village on the border between Rui'an and Pingyang counties, 79-year-old grandma Fu hummed an old folk tune to us: "Four corners, four ears, four multiplied by four makes 16 halls. The eight immortals dwell in every hall, while the rouge appears on every lip."

The patterns on the local traditional quilts in Wenzhou usually featured four horizontal and four vertical lines, symbolizing the 16 "halls." In the "halls" there were the usual "eight immortals" or "100 sons," which had nuptial connotations. The lips of the characters were sometimes painted with rouge or decorated with red threads.

"Four corners, four ears," signified the four pieces of cloth sewn on the four corners of a quilt.

Grandma Fu recalled that she was engaged when she was only 14. That was some 65 years ago. Her family was busy preparing the jiaxie quilts for her, and her grandma was humming this very tune while looking at the calendar to select a good date.

Together with her mother, Grandma Fu wove the white cloth, which was then sent to the dyehouse. The people at the dyehouse used indigo and wooden printing blocks to print the patterns of "100 sons," "double happiness" and "dragon and phoenix."

Then the cloths were made into quilts and sent to the bridal chamber. On the next morning, the newly-weds were dressed from head to toe in indigo.

Over the centuries, several jiaxie-making centers arose in Wenzhou. Huangtandong, a village in the Yandang Mountains in Leqing County, was said to produce the best indigo.

All the streets, houses, stalls and toilets in Huangtandong, in the northern suburbs of Leqing, were made of stone.

The villagers, descendants of a family named Lu, made their living by planting rice, sweet potatoes and woad. Woad, the plant used to make indigo dyes, was their main source of income.

It was planted in spring and harvested in autumn. The villagers say that autumn was the busiest season. Women and children picked the leaves and shoots, while the men carried them to the pits.

The pits were in sets of three -- one big pit and two small ones. The big pit was about one meter deep and two meters in diameter.

It was filled with water which was stirred at least three times a day. A few days later the leaves and shoots would become moldy and black. They were then transferred into the small pits where the soaking continued. The dregs in the big pit were taken out and mixed with lime then put back into the pit. Again they are taken out, mixed with lime and put back.

This procedure was repeated 10 times, by which time the dye was ready. It was hard work. The local people of Huangtandong followed this routine for generations, until the 1950s, and the local people were very proud of their work.

On a good day the men would get up in early morning and carry the indigo to the town of Kunyang, where their goods were gathered and sent to dyehouses in nearby towns -- Cangnan, Wencheng and Taishun.

The street where the shops that once collected the dyes still exists, but the last prosperous time for indigo production in Huangtandong was in the 1950s.

Now they still plant woad, but it is no longer used for making indigo, instead it is used to make a medicine called banlangen, which is used to treat the common cold.

Now in the village, abandoned pits can be seen everywhere. Some are used to store fertilizer, while others have been filled in and are used to grow plants.

Only three families still make indigo in Huangtandong. Mr Huang, who is in his 60s, made 25 pits of indigo last year. His patrons are people from Hangzhou, in nearby Zhejiang Province, and he has customers in some cities of Fujian Province.

Huang never looks for clients; they come to him. He said for hundreds of years the indigo-makers always waited for the people from dyehouses to come. "Our indigo was the most famous!" he said. "Until they stop using it, we will continue to make it."

Cloth makers

Cangnan is an important place in the history of jiaxie, not only because there used to be many dyehouses in the area, but also because of a person from Cangnan -- Xue Xunlang, who accidentally became a reviver of jiaxie.

Xue got to know an elderly Japanese lady in 1988, who ran the Lan Lan Chinese Flowery Cloth Store in Shanghai.

At her request, Xue brought to her some bolts of old cloth from the Chinese countryside. A piece of jiaxie cloth was among them. Xue was told that historians believed that this handicraft had been lost in China.

Xue explained that such cloth was very common in Wenzhou. Although it had not been manufactured for about 20 years, it would not be difficult to resume production.

Xue went to the Dai family in Cangnan, who used to own the most famous dyehouse in the area. The Dais recommended Chen Kangsuan, who once worked at their dyehouse, to Xue.

When Xue found Chen, Chen was already 66 years old and had not made any jiaxie cloth for over 30 years. When Chen heard that his old handicraft skills could be used again, he cheerfully agreed to try.

When Xue took Chen's works to Shanghai, an exhibition of jiaxie cloth was held and drew the attention of Liu Daoguang, a professor of traditional Chinese industrial arts from Southeastern University. Liu contacted Han Sheng magazine in Taiwan.

Reporters from Han Sheng went to Cangnan in October 1997. At that time, Xue's jiaxie workshop was about to close down. Both the magazine and the Lan Lan Chinese Flowery Cloth Store ordered 500 pieces of jiaxie cloth, which kept the workshop going for another year.

Reporters from Han Sheng went to Cangnan three times and the magazine published a special edition on jiaxie. The special edition rocked industrial arts circles of Japan, where there had been a lot of speculation about the origin of similar handicrafts in Japan.

Japanese experts immediately went to the Cangnan and Yishan areas of Wenzhou, and paid visits to Xue's workshop and the Dai family.

However, Xue's workshop finally closed down. Xue did not research the splendid history of jiaxie, nor did he wish to take the responsibility of reviving the handicraft. He only wanted to make a living on his own.

The high praise from the experts and media pleased as well as puzzled Xue: Was it really so good and so important? Then why didn't his workshop get more business?

He had to find something else to support his family.

Woodblock makers

Woodblocks engraved with the "halls" and immortal and mortal figures were an integral part of traditional jiaxie printing and dyeing techniques.

Today, only the Su family living in Gaolou Village in Rui'an County still carry on the woodblock handicraft.

In the late 1960s and early 70s, the Su family, headed by Su Shangtie, was able to keep the engraving going because the dyeing industry in Wenzhou was using chemicals, and the woodblocks quickly deteriorated.

However, when the traditional quilts lost their allure and when the dye houses went broke, the Su family could no longer make a living producing woodblocks. The Su family made its last batch of blocks for Xue in 1989, when Su Shangtie was still alive.

(This article first appeared in the Chinese magazine, Cultural Geography.)

(China Daily July 18, 2002)