Suzhou Silk Round Fan: The Elegance of Silk in Intangible Cultural Heritage Techniques

In Suzhou, a city brimming with poetic charm, intangible cultural heritages are like twinkling stars in the historical firmament. Among them, the Suzhou silk round fan is undoubtedly an extremely radiant one. With real silk as its soul and relying on the exquisite Suzhou silk techniques, it quietly radiates a unique brilliance in the long river of time, becoming a symbol of inheritance and beauty.

Real silk, as the soul material of the Suzhou silk round fan, carries the most delicate gifts from nature. Each strand of silk, with a diameter of only about 10 - 15 micrometers, is several times finer than a hair but contains astonishing toughness and luster. These silks, as light as spider silk, are carefully produced by silkworms through a long spinning process. To weave a square of satin for the fan surface of a round fan, thousands or even tens of thousands of such silks need to be gathered. They interweave with each other, like dense warps and wefts, outlining the unique light and thin texture of the fan surface.

When real silk is carefully selected and used to make the fan surface of the round fan, it lays a unique foundation. As the light flows, the silk fan surface will present a hazy and elegant halo. That halo is like the surface of a lake shrouded in morning mist, quiet and charming, perfectly interpreting the implicit beauty in oriental aesthetics. Whether it is soft natural light or dim yellow lamplight, when it falls on the silk fan surface, it will be scattered by its delicate texture, forming a dreamlike visual effect, making people can't help but be immersed in it and marvel at the perfect combination of nature and human wisdom.

The Suzhou silk techniques inject profound cultural heritage and endless artistic charm into this small round fan. Starting from the initial step of silk selection, the craftsmen adhere to strict standards. They go deep into the villages where mulberry silkworms are raised, shuttle among numerous silkworm cocoons, and with years of accumulated experience and sharp eyes, only select those high-quality silkworm cocoons with uniform color, tough texture and moderate fiber length as the raw materials for making round fans. Because they deeply understand that only the best silk can endow the round fan with the most perfect quality.

After selecting the silk, it enters the complex process of silk reeling. This is a process that requires patience and concentration. A skilled craftsman can only reel out about 500 grams of qualified silk in a day with careful operation. These silks, like threads drawn from silkworm cocoons, have a slight natural luster, but they still need to go through subsequent fine processing to become raw materials that can be used for weaving. And to weave these silks into the satin needed for the fan surface, it needs to go through dozens of days and more than a hundred fine operations, from soaking, cooking cocoons, shelling cocoons, to reeling, doubling, and twisting. Every step allows no carelessness. The craftsmen's hands, in this cumbersome process, are like agile dancers, endowing the silk with new life.

After completing the weaving of the satin, the production of the round fan enters the most wonderful painting and decoration stage. The craftsmen in Suzhou, relying on the exquisite techniques passed down from generation to generation, either embroider or paint, integrating poetic elements such as landscapes, flowers and birds into the fan surface. If it is an embroidered round fan, it is a feast of the art of needles and threads. A delicate fan surface pattern often requires more than ten thousand stitches, and the error of each stitch needs to be strictly controlled within 0.1 millimeters to present a delicate, vivid and lifelike picture. The craftsmen's fingers shuttle flexibly on the fan surface, just like playing a silent movement. Each stitch contains their love and dedication to art. When the delicate and dripping flowers and the agile and elegant birds gradually emerge on the fan surface, it seems that the whole world stands still, leaving only this small fan surface carrying endless beauty and poetry.

If it is a painted round fan, the painters will use delicate brushstrokes to outline intoxicating pictures on the fan surface. They take real silk as the canvas and ink as the color, presenting elements such as the garden scenery, water town views and humanistic customs of Suzhou on the fan surface one by one. Each stroke of rendering and each color matching has been carefully conceived and repeatedly considered by the painters, striving to show the richest connotation and the most beautiful artistic conception on this small fan surface.

The Suzhou silk round fan is not only the crystallization of the perfect integration of Suzhou silk techniques and real silk, but also the condensation of time and ingenuity. Each round fan, from the initial selection of raw materials to the final birth of the finished product, has to go through more than a hundred processes and take several months. In this long production process, it condenses thousands of hours of hard work and sweat of the craftsmen. They are not only tools for cooling, but also artistic treasures carrying profound cultural heritage and superb artistic value. 

Nowadays, the Suzhou silk round fan has walked out of the alleys of Suzhou and stepped onto the world stage. In various art exhibitions and cultural exchange activities at home and abroad, its figure can be seen. With its unique charm, it attracts the attention of countless people and has become a bright business card for spreading Suzhou culture and traditional Chinese culture. It inherits the warmth of intangible cultural heritage and tells the world about Suzhou's persistent pursuit of beauty and its adherence to and inheritance of traditional techniques. In the long river of time, it continues to radiate vigorous vitality, transmitting the romance and elegance of the East, allowing the ancient intangible cultural heritage to bloom with more splendid brilliance in modern society in such a poetic form.