Mechanization Can Not Replace Traditional Dyeing And Finishing Of Xiangyun Yarn

　　 Gambiered Guangdong gauze It is the pride of Foshan people. Today, I visited the Xiangyun yarn base in Shunde District of Foshan to understand the dyeing and finishing technology of the national intangible cultural heritage -- Xiangyun yarn.

The fragrant gauze yarn is made from the "Guangdong and Guangxi" juice and the unique river mud of the Pearl River Delta. It is naturally environment-friendly, soft and rich in body bones, and feels light and not wrinkled. From the Ming Dynasty Yongle year (about fifteenth Century) began production and exported to overseas, in 20s and 30s twentieth Century reached its peak, the then Shanghai tycoon regarded as a noble dress.

The changes of the times and the vicissitudes of life have been carried out by several generations of old teachers who have been taught and cultivated carefully. In 2008, the dyeing and finishing technology of Lun Jiao yarn was recognized as a national intangible cultural heritage.

According to the introduction, there are two kinds of raw materials for making Xiangyun gauze, one is river mud, and the other must be non polluted river mud, the other is black brown.

　　 Yam gauze During processing, the juice of the natural Dioscorea is used as a natural dye. After repeated dyeing and dyeing, the semi finished products of the brown silk are dyed, and then the black pond mud is applied to one side, and then exposed to the scorching sun. When the pond mud and other biochemical components are fully reacted with the jellyfish juice, shake off the pond mud and clean it, it becomes a black and yellow, oily glistening gauze. The real superior yarn is black and the reverse is yellowish brown.

Gambiered Guangdong gauze Dyeing and finishing skills Liang Zhu, the representative of the inheritor and manager of the Lun Jiao Cheng Tan factory, introduces that there are over 30 processes in the traditional dyeing and finishing of Xiangyun yarn, including the process of green silk, scouring, dipping of scythe, drying, scouring, passing mud, washing, drying, spreading fogs, stretching and fitting. And every process must be in place to ensure the quality of the yarn. This is a purely manual process without the use of modern machinery. And "depend on the sky" because the last dyeing process needs to be exposed to the scorching sun. In good weather, a batch of gauze will take a week to complete.

Although the pure manual operation led to the slow production speed, limited number and high price, Liang Zhu revealed that the production of genuine fragrant gauze can not be laziness and can not be completed by modern machinery.

He said: "now, in the whole production process, except for the extraction of Dioscorea, the machine is no longer needed to hand grind, other processes are purely manual processes. Some silk companies once brought the production technology of Xiangyun yarn to many factories in Dandong, Liaoning, and used mechanized production. However, the produced yarn can not be separated from both sides, and the quality is greatly affected. So at present, mechanization can not really make the real yarn, only the traditional dyeing and finishing technology.

Liang Zhu said: "Xiangyun gauze is by far the world's unique green fabric, which needs protection and inheritance, and can not be lost."