Guizhou's NPC deputy revitalizes rural area with Miao embroidery

Shi Liping, NPC deputy, showcases Miao embroidery products. [Photo/ddcpc website]

Shi Liping, a deputy to the National People's Congress and an inheritor of Miao embroidery, a national intangible heritage item, has been focusing on raising people's incomes through Miao embroidery.

In the past year, Shi offered training sessions in communities to teach residents relocated from impoverished areas to make Miao embroidery. Shi's Miao embroidery company has cooperated with villages and helped more than 4,000 women work from home.

Shi also tried making sachets and pillows with Miao embroidery and stuffed them with traditional Miao medicine, and opened classes at local workshops to select young inheritors of Miao embroidery.

Shi believes that intangible cultural heritage items can only survive in the modern era by advancing with the times and becoming more practical. She has developed various Miao embroidery products, including accessories, food and modern clothes to attract more young people.

At last year's session of the National People's Congress, Shi proposed 13 items concerning intangible cultural heritage preservation, industrial development and people's livelihoods, all of which received responses.

This year, Shi will put forward more proposals at the annual session of the National People's Congress to strive for policy support for the integration of intangible cultural heritage with rural revitalization.