TEXTILES CRAFTS COMMUNITY IN CHINA

Who are the Miao?

2006-04-24T06:19:00.000-07:00

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PRONUNCIATION: mee-OW

•ALTERNATE NAMES: Hmong; Hmu; Meo

•LOCATION: China (mostly live in the Guizhou region)

•POPULATION: 7 million

•LANGUAGE: Miao + 30-40 mutually unintelligible dialects.

•RELIGION: Shamanism; ancestor worship (Animists)

CHARACTER: Friendly and hospitable, lovers of dance, music, and art.

Context-Social Labor

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1. The motivation behind Miao women’s hard work needed to make their clothes is their devotion to their ancestors.
2. It has long been a tradition for Miao women to use embroidery and sewing to show how much they worship their ancestors.

•3. Mountains and rivers make Miao areas difficult to access, which has lessened the impact of modern civilization and helped them to maintain old traditions.

•4. Without written script, Miao people have used their costumes to record their history.
5. Different patterns and designs on the clothes retain rich meaning and refer to legendary stories about such things as their origins, wars and religious beliefs.

•6. Because hand-made Miao costumes are sewn individually by Miao women in their homes, there are hardly two costumes with the same style or pattern.

•7. The batik dyeing is meticulous and a long-standing tradition among the Miao.

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Social Problem-

The Miao face the problems of poverty and isolation. They are poor, oppressed by the government, and isolated by high mounains Many Miao young people migrate from their villages to cities and coastal areas. When they return, they can bring new knowledge and skills back to their home-towns. However, their absence removes talents and skills needed in the present. Many children, especially girls cannot afford to be educated and as many as 95 percent of Miao women cannot read or write.

Political Situation-The majority of Miao live in countries ruled by communist-controlled governments (Vietnam, Laos, China).

What is Mass Customization?

2006-04-18T03:59:00.000-07:00

• Producing in volume, but at the same time giving each individual customer something different according to his or her unique needs.

• The process by which custom-designed products are offered to more consumers atever lower prices.

• A manufacturing environment in which many standardized components are combined to produce custom-made products to customer order.

• Shorthand for high variability in marketing. Uses the power of the database to vary the marketing message - or the actual product -to fit the characteristics of an individual customer or prospect.

• A highly streamlined and flexible approach to production that enables quick and efficient production of customized products and/or services at low cost and high volume.

• A powerful marketing tool that uses a database to tailor a marketing message or the actual product to fit the characteristics of each individual customer or prospect.

web pages in english about Miao community

2006-04-13T06:41:00.000-07:00

http://www.marlamallett.com/miao.htm
http://www.marlamallett.com/miaofolklore.htm

Social business

2006-04-13T06:38:00.000-07:00

Paula sent me this link about an organization that supports social business http://www.ashoka.org/home/index.cfm

TEXTILES CRAFTS COMMUNITY IN CHINA

2006-04-13T06:35:00.000-07:00

TEXTILES CRAFTS COMMUNITY IN CHINA

The Miao Ninority

2006-04-12T11:13:00.000-07:00

Hello!

Here is an article about the race "Miao".

The Miao are one of the most ancient of China's nationalities, tracing their origins back more than 4,000 years. Prior to modernization of farming methods, they grew millet and buckwheat using the slash-and-burn methods. The Miao language has three main dialects, but there was no unified written script until 1956. Religions include nature and ancestor worship and Christianity.

Dispersed from southern China across northern Vietnam, Laos, and into Thailand, the Miao (also known as the Hmong), vary in dialect, styles of farming, and designation: Black, White, Red, blue, Flowery, and Cowrie Shell Miao among others. Forced southward by the Han, often despised and exploited, many settled in distant mountains, raising millet and buckwheat by slash-and-burn farming, their diet supplemented by domestic animals and hunting. Modernization, improved farming methods, organization of communes, and road building has been made difficult by the ragged terrain in which the Miao are scattered. The Miao are found in the Guizhou, Hainan, Hubei, Sichuan, Gansu, Guizhou, Qinghai, Hunan, Guangdong, and Yunnan Provinces and the Guangxi Autonomous Region. They are part of the Sino-Tibetan Miao-Yao ethno linguistic group.

About 195 km almost directly east of Guiyang in the town of Kaili. Kaili is a fairly uninspiring place but the area is host to a large number of minority festivals, over 130 annually. One of the largest is the Lusheng Festival, held from the 11th to the 18th of the first lunar month. The lusheng is a reed instrument used by the Miao people. Activities include playing the lusheng, dancing, drumming, bull fighting, and horse racing. Participants are said to number 30,000. The festival is held in Danxi. Other festivals are held midway in the 7th lunar month and in their New Year. Their New Year is celebrated in the first four days of the 10th lunar month by some 50,000 people.

About 752,000 Miao live in Yunnan Province scattered over eighty-seven counties. They are good at weaving, embroidery and Batik. Their excellent craftsmanship is well known.

-posted by Lien-Chiu

Welcome to the blog!

2006-04-12T07:59:00.000-07:00

Hi everybody!