By CCTV.com Panview editor team     

Editor’s foreword: "Looking China" International Youth Film Project is co-organized by the Academy for International Communication of Chinese Culture (AICCC), Beijing Normal University and Huilin Foundation, which aims to showcase the contrasting simplicity and glamour, the antiquity and fashion of China through unique perspectives of young foreign film makers.

As of the year 2016, 101 students from 25 countries were invited to participate in the project. They were stationed in 13 municipality, provinces and autonomous regions here in China. Every filmmaker has worked out a 10-minute short film about Chinese culture around the topic of “ethnic minority”.

The film, Weaving Hainan, directed by Freek Janson, highlights the unique culture of the ethnic minority group, Li Nation, who reside in the scenic tropical village on Hainan Island.

The Li Nation’s people have a rich cultural heritage and take pride in their unique customs and ways of living. They believe that everything they do is different than the mainstream.

For a long time, the villages of the Li Nation were mostly impoverished, so they had to keep living costs at a minimum. All women were expected to weave their own clothes for families and take a creative approach with it.

The weaving can be time-consuming as they use implements from long ago to make clothes. Some elderly women work from sun up to sun down, but since villagers have earned higher incomes, weaving clothes has become more of a hobby, not a habit of necessity.

The younger women still weave clothes, but they take shortcuts to reduce the workload, since many are employed in jobs outside the household. They purchase pre-made fabrics and stitchclothes, while using many new color combinations.

Accordingly, the life of the Li Nation will stay colorful for many years to come.
 

( The opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Panview or CCTV.com. )

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