Guan Cao Weaving Technique

98.Guan Cao Weaving Technique

Nominating Unit: Houjie Town, City of Dongguan

City of Dongguan, located in the estuaries of the Pearl River and the East River where rivers and tides meet, salt water and fresh water flush and irrigate alternatively, is suitable for the growing of water grass. The grass there, named Guan Cao (Tabernaemontanus Bulrush), soft as well as tough, is a good material for weaving mats and now is a famous specialty of Dongguan. Dongguan Guancao Weaving Technique has a long history. The tomb bricks in the Warring States Period unearthed in Dongguan have clear and neat mat marks. The seat mats unearthed in Mawangdui No.1 tomb in Changsha are proven to be Guan Mat by the historians. Song Qi Ju Zhu (imperial diary of the Song Dynasty, noting the words and deeds of emperor) has the description of “Guangzhou Feudal Provincial Wei Lang ordered 320 white Guan Mats”which proves that the Guan Cao Weaving has a history of at least more than 2000 years. In modern times, this land of rivers and lakes grew massive Guan Cao and the weaving products were exported to Europe, America, Australia and Southeast Asia. In the 1960s and 1970s, the peak period of Guan Cao Weaving, a bulk of finished products were exported, which was able to compete with silk fabrics.(https://www.daowen.com)

Guan Cao Weaving, mainly distributed in Houjie, Daojiao, Humen, Guancheng, and Wangniudun in City of Dongguan, has several categories: hay band, straw band, paunch mat, straw mat, etc. Straw mat is the representative of Guan Cao Weaving Technique, especially the Jie Huang Mat in Houjie Town. It consists of 8 procedures: straw selecting, straw dyeing, straw sun drying, xing geng (rope), mat weaving, mat clipping, mat patting, mat completing, among which xing geng and mat weaving are the most crucial procedures. Houjie Mats are made through weaving machine. Xing geng is to weave a lot of boom cables with hemp ropes according to long holes and circular holes in Xi Gou(one part of the machine)the weaving machine. This helps to fix the Xi Gou. One should use long machine to weave long mats, while short machine to short mats. Mat weaving can be carried out after xing geng. It needs 2 persons to weave with dyed Guan Cao according to the design. Generally, a skillful worker is able to weave 5 mats per day. Houjie Jie Huang Mats, with various designs, are anti-mildew, durable and non-fading. In recent 10 years, Guan Cao Weaving Technique has got new development. The straw mat category is newly added with Ti Hua Mat (jacquard), Mi Hua Mat (rice flower), Fang Mat (square), Pu Tuan Mat (futon) as well as straw baskets and straw boxes.

As the plastic products have gradually taken the place of the traditional straw products, the manual Guan Cao Weaving Industry almost stops production. It is even difficult to find the traditional weaving products locally. Guan Cao Weaving Technique is faced with crisis of being lost. There is an urgent need to save and protect it.