Bamboo Weaving (Daoming Bamboo Weaving)

Daoming bamboo weaving is a traditional craft of the Daoming area in Chongzhou, Chengdu, where the soft cizhu bamboo grows abundantly; with a long history, families have woven bamboo wares for generations, making it a representative folk handcraft of the western Sichuan plain.

Using cizhu bamboo, makers select, scrape, split, strip, and dye the cane into strips as fine as hair, then weave them over and under in warp and weft. Techniques divide into flat and three-dimensional weaving, producing baskets and household wares as well as porcelain-bodied bamboo ware and woven bamboo pictures.

Daoming weaving unites everyday utility with craft beauty, embodying the western Sichuan wisdom of using local materials; it entered the fourth national intangible-heritage list in 2014 and has lately become a model of rural creative industry.

Daoming weaving can be seen taught and shown in the Bamboo Craft Village at Daoming in Chongzhou, where the full course from splitting strips to weaving best reveals its patience and ingenuity.