China News Service, Wuhan, February 1st: "The number one natural dyer in China" searches for flowers and grass to restore thousands of Chinese colors

　　Author Wu Yili

　　Cotton, linen, and silk printed and dyed with willow leaves, cork, cypress and other plants were cut into palm-sized squares, classified according to different raw materials, fabrics, and colors, and pasted in order on a notebook, which is as thick as a dictionary.

　　During a recent interview, a reporter discovered that Huang Ronghua had produced more than a hundred notebooks like this one.

　　Huang Ronghua, 68, is a representative inheritor of traditional plant dye dyeing techniques in the Hubei Provincial Intangible Cultural Heritage Project and is hailed by the industry as "China's number one natural dyer." Natural dyeing raw materials are all derived from nature. He went to high mountains and deep forests to restore 1,082 traditional Chinese colors over more than 40 years and create China's first plant dyeing standard color card.

Huang Ronghua’s notebooks are covered with fabrics of different colors. Photo by Zhang Chang

　　Huang Ronghua was born into a family of craftsmen and later became a textile engineer. At an academic seminar on textile printing and dyeing, Chinese and foreign experts talked about the Western theory of three primary colors, but no one mentioned the traditional Chinese colors. This made Huang Ronghua think deeply: China has a long history of natural dyeing. The five primary colors "red, yellow, green, black and white" originated in the Western Zhou Dynasty more than 2,000 years ago. Why are the three primary colors so well known and the color numbers of the Pantone color card are defined? Following the international fashion trend, but the Chinese color has been eclipsed in the long history, and is scattered and hard to find?

　　For this reason, Huang Ronghua decided to use natural dyeing, an ancient Chinese technique, to restore the Chinese color. Sandalwood purple, green lotus, sky blue after rain...these are a vast array of colors recorded in poems, classics, calligraphy and paintings, but there are neither physical objects nor images, they can only be understood. How to materialize them? He consulted a large amount of literature and conducted in-depth research on the culture behind colors; he searched for flowers and plants, tried and made errors repeatedly, and once, in order to restore an indigo color, he dived into the bottom of the Grand Canyon more than 200 meters deep to find flower raw materials.

On January 15, Huang Ronghua, the representative inheritor of traditional plant dye dyeing techniques in the Hubei Provincial Intangible Cultural Heritage Project, was interviewed. Photo by Wu Yili

　　Among them, a color called "Mihe" has troubled Huang Ronghua for many years. Li Dou of the Qing Dynasty briefly recorded it in "Yangzhou Painted Boat Record": "The light yellow and white color is Mihe"; Xue Baochai in "A Dream of Red Mansions" also wore it The honey-colored jacket "doesn't look luxurious, but feels elegant and light." Apart from this, there is no book to test. By chance, Huang Ronghua chatted with a professor of traditional Chinese medicine and learned that "Mihe" is a honey refining process for making pills. During the refining process, the honey turns slightly red, and the drawn filaments are yellow-white, which is the name of "Mihe". color.

　　To dye honey with a hint of red light in yellow and white, it is most suitable to use cuscus wood as the raw material. But Zhehuang was once a royal color, which was inconsistent with Xue Baochai's image. After several experiments, Huang Ronghua changed the light color from zhehuang to honeycomb, which not only implies nobility but also has a sense of antiquity, which is just right.

　　"Cork cypress can be dyed into different shades of yellow on different fabrics; this green is dyed by the red fallen leaves of the Du Ying tree..." Huang Ronghua introduced to reporters, pointing to a notebook covered with fabric. His nails were black, the mark of years of staining. Huang Ronghua said that he never wears gloves when dyeing so that he can control the water temperature and dye viscosity.

　　Today, Huang Ronghua's "Chinese Colors" printed and dyed have appeared in the International Fashion Week, and companies such as automobiles, home appliances, beauty products, and games have come to seek cooperation. He said that these seemingly unrelated industries can also be "cross-border" integrated with intangible cultural heritage, which shows that traditional culture has an irreplaceable position in the hearts of Chinese people.

　　"I dare not say that the craftsmanship is better than that of my ancestors. I just want to restore and pass on this skill as much as possible." Today, when industrial printing and dyeing is popular, Huang Ronghua still insists on natural dyeing with original ecology, original skills and raw materials.

　　Every day, Huang Ronghua simultaneously updates the knowledge of natural dyeing and the cultural connotation behind traditional Chinese colors on 13 online platforms, and he never tires of it. He jokingly calls himself a "daily update blogger" and attracts millions of netizens to "follow updates". Backend data shows that 60% of netizens are between 18 and 34 years old.

　　"You see, Chinese traditional culture is still very popular among young people." Huang Ronghua said proudly. (over)