Racing against time for heritage

Over the past decade, the Qiang embroidery cooperative Zhang founded in her hometown in Lixian county of the Aba Tibetan and Qiang autonomous prefecture in Sichuan province, has expanded to over 20 full-time employees. At its peak, it employed more than 300 Qiang women in part-time embroidery production.

Her workshop in the Taoping Qiang village in Lixian has developed more than 1,000 Qiang embroidery cultural and creative products, attracting over 10,000 university students each year for study tours.

Zhang was born and raised in the Jiaochang village in Lixian. In her generation, few girls in the village could do Qiang embroidery.

"My mother's generation began prioritizing education over embroidery," she recalls. "Since I was a child, people started to wear factory-made modern clothes. Now, traditional Qiang embroidered garments are only worn during festivals."

Zhang's renewed understanding of Qiang embroidery came after the magnitude 8.0 Wenchuan earthquake in 2008, which led to the permanent loss of numerous Qiang buildings, artifacts and cultural inheritors.

Following the earthquake, the Aba prefecture government launched a Qiang embroidery support program in cooperation with a charitable foundation, bringing in orders of Qiang embroidery products to the women to help increase their income.

"It made me realize that Qiang embroidery could be transformed into a variety of products and integrated into modern life," she says.