Living Condition of Suzhou Embroidery Craftswomen and Artists

It is estimated that there are 80, 000 embroidery craftswomen and artists in Suzhou, a city famous for silk and silk embroidery, east China's Jiangsu Province. Most of them are from Zhenhu, a small town where almost every woman can do hand embroidery work. Women there learned how to embroider when they were little girls, 7 and 8 years old. Since almost every woman can embroider well, young girls have a very good environment to learn and can learn the embroidery skills quickly. They first watch their mothers or grandmothers embroider, and after some time their mothers or grandmothers would teach them how to embroider by showing step by step. They would try some very simple images at the beginning, for instance flowers that can be completed in one day.  Though skills and techniques can be learned from mothers and grandmothers, young girls normally need to spend 2 to 3 years on embroidering average images before they can embroider animals and portraits well.  

Almost all the families in the silk embroidery town have at least one embroidery worker. Most embroidery workers were born in farming families and embroidering is one important part of their family income. Embroidering is a very tiring job because it requires continuous concentration. Many workers' eyesight become weak after 50 years old and can no longer work long time. Embroidery workers work about 10 hours a day for about 60 RMB, but some more skilled workers can earn more. Now young girls are learning to embroider because they like it unlike their mothers and grandmothers who were forced to learn to embroider to support their families when they were young. Actually mothers now do not hope their daughters to follow their footsteps. They hope their daughters can go to college and work in a company. They consider working in a city is more decent than embroidering in the town.

Few of the embroidery workers are well known in China, though there are many embroidery workers whose works are really masterpieces. They never sign their embroidery works and don't know who buy their works.