Shoes ornaments - a tender patron

Usually, shoes ornaments are located at the bottom of human body where people seldom notice them. They keep watch for their master, linking human beings with the earth while warming the master. Although they the last part to be seen, the ethnic groups in China do not give up their feeling on shoes. How about the story of shoes?

It is a surprising part for us to understand the mark and history represented by the shoes.

The Oroqen and Ewenki ethnic groups in Northeast China are accustomed to make shoes with roe hide. The front uppers of the shoes are dotted with the design of little deer, baby bear and flower, and the patterns are simple and bright. The leather boots accompany their masters all the life, even after the death of them, the worn boots would be buried in the coffin with the dead.

The Daur people like wearing a kind of leather boots called òQikamió, which is made of the hide of squirrel or lynx embroidered with various geometric figures. It looks artistic, light and handy. The Aitegeó sheepskin boot used by the Uzbek people looks very portable and warm. The leather boot has a close relationship with the etiquette and customs of the Xibe. The Xibe people use colourful leather, such as red, blue and green, to make front uppers, which are embroidered with flower. When the Chinese traditional New Year - the Spring Festival - draws near, local people often hang the boots outside the house until the second day of a lunar new year. That costume means jubilancy and fortunate.

With hard sole and soft upper, the high boot of the Tibetan people is often made of the hide of horse or yak. The bootleg is put a piece of woolen fabric underneath, and at the back of the bootleg there is 10-centimeter-long opening for dressing and undressing. With something rustic and primitive, the style is in good taste and comfortable. Some ethnic groups, such as the Li, Dai and Gin in Southwest and South china and the Korean in Changbai Mountain in Northeast China are very good at making wooden sandal. And also the Zhuang people have a long history in wearing wooden sandal, which has become the articles of everyday use. Local people extend it into traditional sports by forming a very popular sandal dancing. Some Japanese scholars found it astonishing that there is nearly the same between the wooden sandal in the Hani villages and that used by the modern Japanese. In various shoes ornaments of the ethnic groups in China, cloth shoes with splendid decoration have many uses and the richest cultural information. With style, design of embroidery and practical use blending into one, cloth shoes are one of the handcrafts and commodities of the ethnic groups. More than 20 ethnic groups in China, including the Primi, Bouye, Miao, Tujia, She, Maonan and Yi, often wear embroidered shoes.

With hard sole and soft upper, the high boot of the Tibetan people is often made of the hide of horse or yak. The bootleg is put a piece of woolen fabric underneath, and at the back of the bootleg there is 10-centimeter-long opening for dressing and undressing. With something rustic and primitive, the style is in good taste and comfortable.

Some ethnic groups, such as the Li, Dai and Gin in Southwest and South china and the Korean in Changbai Mountain in Northeast China are very good at making wooden sandal. And also the Zhuang people have a long history in wearing wooden sandal, which has become the articles of everyday use. Local people extend it into traditional sports by forming a very popular sandal dancing. Some Japanese scholars found it astonishing that there is nearly the same between the wooden sandal in the Hani villages and that used by the modern Japanese.

In various shoes ornaments of the ethnic groups in China, cloth shoes with splendid decoration have many uses and the richest cultural information. With style, design of embroidery and practical use blending into one, cloth shoes are one of the handcrafts and commodities of the ethnic groups. More than 20 ethnic groups in China, including the Primi, Bouye, Miao, Tujia, She, Maonan and Yi, often wear embroidered shoes.

These embroidered shoes contain the ethnic groups’ aesthetic conception, regional habits and customs and rich social information.

1) The Ethnic Zhuang’s shoes

Such shoes follow the convention of a kind of shoes during the Sui (581-618) and Tang dynasties (618-907). Its front uppers is black and the design of flower and plants is handed down from forefathers, as the Zhuang people advocate the black colour. According to a popular legend, the Zhuang Creator Goddess Miluojiaó was born among flowers. That is why the design of flower is always embroidered respectfully on the front uppers. Meanwhile, the pattern of flying butterfly and flower not only convey lucky and jubilation, but also implies meaning of all things on the earth are vibrant with life.

2) The Ethnic Dong’s shoes

The Dong women often embroider a flying colourful phoenix on the front uppers of the cloth shoes. The pattern in relief leads to an ancient tale about the Dong ethnic group. Once upon a time, when Jiang Liang and Jiang Mei, two Creators, began to create the Dong people, phoenix nurtures the babies and stretches its wings to shelter the immature life from rain and wind. So the Dong people show respect to phoenix as their patron.

3) The Ethnic Sui’s shoes

The reason why the Sui people like embroidered shoes comes from a beautiful legend. In ancient time, the Sui people live in the mountainous area. There are full of serpents everywhere in the depth of the forests and the Sui people cannot cut firewood. A girl named Xiuó cudgels her brains to remove obstacles of the snakes. One day, she thought to frighten serpents with various colours. She embroidered upper of shoes near her feet with colourful silk thread and front uppers with different designs of flowers and plants. The girl climbs the mountain with the embroidered shoes, and the snakes are so badly shaken that they slip away. Since then, the embroidered shoes with a special handicraft with some horsetail have been handed down generation after generation.

4) The Ethnic Yi’s shoes

The Yi girls like to use gaily coloured and sharply contrasted composition while embroidering shoes. They use high-quality silk thread of red, yellow, white and green to embroider rustic silk tree on the shoes. The silk tree with striking balance conveys the Yi people’s strong feelings. It is said that the silk tree (weiyiluó in the Yi language) was a pretty and clever shepherd girl, who gave her life for rescuing fellow villagers. The Yi people usually hold flower arrangement festivaló and wear shoes and hats embroidered with the design of silk tree in memory of the girl on the eighth day of the second month of the lunar calendar.

5) The Ethnic Hani’s shoes

The Ethnic Hani’s costumes have a long history for its primitive bench-shape shoes made of bamboo and wood. Ancestors of the Ethnic Hani were very good at using the resources of bamboo and wood from nature. Such bench-shape shoes are economical and practical and spread far and wide.

6) The Ethnic Mongolian’s shoes

The Ethnic Mongolian is an ethnic group on horse back (all of them live at hunting and herding), the Mongolian people like short-leg cloth boot, which is convenient to ride and walk on the grassland on foot. Most of the patterns on the boot express are the eulogy to life and wish to be lucky. There is a ó design on the cloth bootleg, meaning prosperity in people and livestock as well as getting rich for a long time. The design of melon or gourd connecting with vineó is embroidered around the front uppers, implying a family having many children and having a continued family line (which was considered a blessing in the past). At the center of the front uppers, there embroidered a bat, which means happiness and long life (in Chinese language the pronunciation of bató is the same as happiness).

7) The Ethnic Manchu’s shoes

The Manchu people used to live in the remote mountains and virgin forest, hardworking women went to the dense wood to collect wild fruit and work at daybreak. In order to keep the shoes out of wet by dew and away from the reptiles, the wise Manchu women tied a piece of wood at the sole to keep the shoes from touching the ground directly. As time passed, the shoes and the wood became one and formed the current Manchu’s shoes, which set up a high heel at the center of the sole and wrapped with white cloth. Such shoes are called horse-hoof-shape shoesó when the high heel is small at the upper part and big at the bottom. They are also called flowerpot-shape shoesó when the high heel is big at the upper part and small at the bottom, just like a flowerpot. The Manchu women like to dress cheongsam, who looks more slim and graceful while putting on the Manchu’s shoes. They look more pretty and charming while walking with spirit.