Blue Calico Printing and Dyeing Craft in Tongxiang

BLUE calico is a traditionalChinese handmade printedfabric. Dyed in indigo， it hasa blue base with white patterns.Tongxiang， a city in east China’sZhejiang Province， is well-knownfor printing and dyeing blue calico.The craft boasts a history of a millenniumin the town with its heydayin the Tang （618-907） and Song （960-1279） dynasties. The technique waswidely applied by the general publicduring the Ming and Qing dynasties（1368-1911）.

According to historical records，during the Song and Yuan （960-1368）dynasties， streets in Tongxiang wereflanked by a number of dyehousesand its rivers were dotted with boatscarrying bolts of dyed cloth to besold. Till the early period of theRepublic of China， dyeing businesses"still thrived there. The time-honoreddyeing craft was added to the list ofnational intangible heritage items in2014.

The process of dyeing involvesa series of steps， including carvingboards， applying paste， dyeing，scraping paste， and drying. The firstmajor step requires craftsmen todraw motifs， normally symbols ofhealth and good luck， on a board.The craftsmen then carve the motifs.Next， the carved board is placed on apiece of white cloth and then a speciallyprepared reabsorption resistantpaste is applied to the intersticeson the board. This paste is usually amixture of soybean and lime. In thisway motifs are printed on the cloth.

Next the cloth is submerged in thedye. The indigo dye is made from alocally grown plant， named “Lan Cao，”meaning “blue plant.” The newly dyedcloth takes on a green hue and needssome time to oxidize before turningblue. Each piece of cloth usually goesthrough repeated cycles of submersionin the dye. The oxidizing processin each cycle deepens the blue shade.After the dyed cloth has dried， ablade is used to scrape off the hardenedpaste residue from the fabric’ssurface. In the final phase， the fabricis hung out to dry after a rinse inwater to remove the surface color.

This fascinating dyeing skill is stillsharing its wondrous tales. The Wuzhenscenic spot in Zhejiang housestwo dyehouses showcasing the classicTongxiang dyeing skill to thepublic. One offers a live demonstrationof the technique while the otherprovides an opportunity for visitorsto dye by themselves.