Chengcheng embroidery, a second batch of national intangible cultural heritage protection projects, is an artwork created by peasant women in Chengcheng County, Weinan, Shaanxi Province, when they express their feelings in daily life and interpersonal communication. It is an intangible cultural heritage that carries a heavy traditional culture and life philosophy in farming production and life. It plays an indispensable role in people's food, clothing, housing, transportation, weddings, funerals, births, birthday celebrations, funeral customs and sacrifices. It is both practical and beautiful. Chengcheng embroidery has a long history of thousands of years and is a precious intangible cultural heritage. Chengcheng County, located in the northeast of the Guanzhong Plain, is the birthplace of this folk art. Chengcheng County was established as a county since the Qin and Han Dynasties. There are gullies and ravines in the territory, which is suitable for animal husbandry and farming. The people live a peasant life with men farming and women weaving. The folk customs here are simple, and Chengcheng people are called "Chengcheng Brothers", which further demonstrates the nature of Chengcheng people's emphasis on affection and loyalty. The sedimentation of agricultural farming history has provided fertile soil for the emergence and development of Chengcheng embroidery, and also left a deep imprint of agricultural civilization on Chengcheng embroidery. Chengcheng folk embroidery is a traditional folk art project, which is distributed among the people of the county. In the book "Archaeology of Shang and Zhou Dynasties" written by historian Zou Heng, there is a description of the silk fabrics unearthed from the early Zhou tomb in Rujiazhuang: "Most of them are plain weave fabrics. What attracts people's attention is the imprint of embroidery of a twill jacquard fabric. There are two colors of bright vermilion and stone yellow. The embroidery method adopts the needle method of braid embroidery today, and the stitches are quite even and neat, indicating that the embroidery skills are very skilled." It can be seen that embroidery had developed in the Shang and Zhou dynasties three or four thousand years ago. Rujiazhuang is in Baoji area, which is in Shaanxi Province like Chengcheng. The ancient embroidery collected from now is roughly the same style as Baoji. Therefore, the historical origin of Chengcheng embroidery can also be traced back to the Shang and Zhou dynasties. In the Ming and Qing Dynasties, all married girls had to learn the skills of embroidery, otherwise they would be looked down upon by their husbands. Legend has it that in a village in Liujiawa, there was a girl with beautiful eyebrows and eyes, a graceful figure, who was familiar with history books, could write poems and paint, but did not learn the skills of embroidery. After marriage, she was divorced by her husband's family. She was ashamed and wrote a poem and left sadly. This matter was passed to the palace, and the emperor regretted it. Due to the long time, it is impossible to verify which emperor was involved. Although the long poem did not leave a single word, this story has been widely circulated among the people. Through this legend, it is further explained that the history of Chengcheng embroidery is long. There are many types of embroidery in Chengcheng embroidery, which can be divided into more than 40 types according to their functions. There are more than ten types of embroidery used in life: pillow tops, quilt covers, insoles, aprons, etc. When you walk into an ordinary family in Chengcheng, you will find that you have walked into a hall of folk art. The "Flowers and Full Moon" and "Dragon and Phoenix" embroidered on the pillow tops and quilt covers, and the "Wind Wearing Peony" and four seasons flowers and grass pictures embroidered on aprons and letter inserts will dazzle you. If you are lucky, the dowry in previous years included cloud shoulders embroidered with "fish playing with lotus" and belly wraps embroidered with "fish and lotus turning into babies". There were also pine, cypress and cranes symbolizing the longevity of the elderly, vests embroidered with "five sons passing the imperial examinations" and "official promotion" in the hope that the son would grow up to be famous and wealthy, and "cloth tigers" to protect the healthy growth of grandchildren. The embroidery techniques of Chengcheng include flat embroidery (commonly known as tying flowers), lock embroidery (commonly known as hanging line flowers), jacquard embroidery (commonly known as Dun flowers), and pasting embroidery (cutting cloths of various colors into flowers, leaves, stems, flying insects, small animals, etc., and then embroidering them on the fabric). The tools used are as follows: ancient people mostly used silk as fabric, while modern people can use silk, cotton, or rag cloth; second, the support, which is made of two bamboo strips into two round loops and used together to stretch the fabric; third, embroidery thread, which was mostly used by ancient people, while modern people also use cotton thread or blue yarn instead of silk thread; fourth, embroidery needle, one is a small needle with the tail eye used for flat embroidery, and the other is a Dun flower needle with the head eye used for jacquard embroidery; fifth, the pattern, some are to draw flowers on the fabric, while others are to cut patterns from paper and stick them on the fabric. The basic characteristics of Chengcheng embroidery are delicate needlework, simple and generous flower patterns, harmonious and grand color matching, bizarre and rich imagination, and full and rich composition. There is no rendering of bright red and green, but it is elegant and moderate, elegant and vigorous, and vivid. The decoration themes are wide-ranging, and the needlework, thread and color matching are unconventional to serve the needs of various themes. Another major feature of Chengcheng embroidery is the use of symbols and objects to convey meaning. People hope to be happy, so they use homophones such as bats and Buddha's hands to symbolize "blessings". People hope to get rid of poverty and get promoted, so they often use beautiful sika deer to symbolize "wealth", which contains the meaning of encouraging progress. People hope to live long, so when sending birthday gifts, they use peaches, birthday stars, and cranes to symbolize immortality. When congratulating, they use magpies; mandarin ducks, dragons and phoenixes to express the love between husband and wife; happiness, wealth, longevity and happiness have formed a group of concepts that can encompass all the content of happiness. For example, the combination of bats and peaches represents good fortune and longevity. Five bats surrounding the word "longevity" represent "five blessings and longevity". A fat baby holding a lotus and a big fish represents abundance year after year. As the saying goes, "There is drama in the painting, and you never get tired of watching it." Some beautiful myths and legends and opera characters are also the themes of embroidery, showing its powerful power in life and involving the hearts of millions of people. Chengcheng embroidery reflects the wisdom of ancient Chengcheng and their diligence, simplicity and persistent pursuit of art. Chengcheng embroidery is like a history book. Through this history book, we can see the flowing long hair and slim figures of ancient folk women, wearing all kinds of embroidered clothes, walking towards us. (No pictures yet, welcome to provide.) (No pictures yet, welcome to provide.)