Cantonese Embroidery, an intricate art form with a history dating back to over 1,300 years, is being revitalized through the efforts of its intangible heritage inheritor Wang Xinyuan, who is dedicated to promoting China's rich cultural heritage on a global scale.
As one of China's four major schools of embroidery, "Guang Xiu," the traditional handicraft, is now playing a vital role in China's pursuit of cultural confidence.
In a quiet studio in Guangzhou, the master craftsman leans over an embroidery frame, his skilled hands weaving threads finer than a human hair and creating vibrant, life-like images.
Wang entered the world of embroidery when he was just 13 years old. But it wasn't until 2001 that he met his mentor in Guangzhou and began professional training.
"There was no subway back then, so I had to take a seven-hour bus ride every time I went to see my mentor. It was exhausting for sure, spending seven or eight hours a day on a piece, not knowing if it would ever pay off. (My passion) probably also gave me the perseverance," Wang said.
Bringing embroidery into the modern age is challenging. To keep this heritage alive, it can't remain a luxury art item on the walls - it needs to become a part of everyday life through fashion, home decoration, and gifts.
Wang has expanded the scope of Cantonese embroidery by incorporating national treasures, western masterpieces, and even modern landscapes.
"Western paintings focus on the colors and perspectives. In terms of numbers, some oil painting require over 1,800 or even 3,000 colors. Cantonese embroidery has long had western audience when it was exported overseas. I hope to find a way to not only revive its glory in the Qing (1636-1912) or Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) but also to take it even further," he said.
Wang's expertise has taken him around the world, from Switzerland and Italy to New Zealand, where he shares this ancient craft with new audiences. Back home, his studios welcome students from all walks of life.
"I think it's a beautiful culture, and you can see the traditional styles, but you also can see how it's still kept alive in a new modern way," said Christine, a Brazilian designer.
The story about Wang Xinyuan is part of a larger effort across China to preserve, elevate, and share cultural traditions with the world, ensuring they thrive in the modern age.
Cantonese embroidery master gives new life to ancient art
A recent study by a Japanese scholar has shed new light on exposing the horrific crimes of human experiments committed by Unit 731, a notorious Japanese germ-warfare detachment stationed in northeast China during World War II.
Unit 731 was a top-secret biological and chemical warfare research base established in Harbin, capital of northeast China's Heilongjiang Province in 1935 as the nerve center of Japanese biological warfare in China and Southeast Asia during World War II.
In an interview with China Central Television on the occasion of the 93rd anniversary of the September 18, 1931 Incident, Takao Matsumura, an honorary professor of Japan's Keio University, particularly pointed out that Unit 731's inhumane deeds involved unleashing malicious human-made plagues on people.
The September 18, 1931 Incident in the city of Shenyang in northeast China was a precursor to Japan's launch of a full-scale invasion of China and was a key event ahead of the outbreak of World War Two in Asia.
"Fleas infected with the plague were dropped from aircraft along with food. After they landed on the ground, rats would come to eat the food. The plague-infected fleas would then jump onto the rats, infecting them. As the number of plague-infected rats increased, they would eventually transmit the plague to humans," the professor said, describing how the unit spread the infection to humans.
According to Matsumura, military doctors with Unit 731 were responsible for both producing plague bacillus and developing plague vaccines. He published a book titled "Vaccine Development and War Crime" in 2023, exposing the unit's cruelty of testing the vaccines on live humans.
Matsumura said that the results of these brutal experiments allowed Unit 731 to surpass even Japan's top medical institutions in vaccine research.
"Before the war, the University of Tokyo in Japan had the highest level of expertise in vaccine research. However, when Unit 731 began developing vaccines, they quickly surpassed the university's Infectious Disease Research Institute. And the reason why Unit 731 was able to quickly surpass the research institute was because they conducted experiments on 'Maruta'," he said.
"Maruta" was the code-name for the human experimentation project. In Japanese the word directly translates as "wood that has been skinned" or "logs," which is how the test subjects were referred to.
Unit 731 was a covert biological and chemical warfare research and development unit of the Imperial Japanese Army that engaged in lethal human experimentation and biological weapons manufacturing in China during World War II. The unit is estimated to have killed between 200,000 and 300,000 people. It was based in the Pingfang District of Harbin, the largest city in the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo (now Northeast China, formerly named Manchuria) and had active branch offices throughout China and Southeast Asia.
Unit 731 was responsible for some of the most notorious war crimes committed by the Japanese aggressor troops. It routinely conducted tests on people who had undergone inhuman treatment. Experiments included disease injections, controlled dehydration, biological weapons testing, hypobaric pressure chamber testing, vivisection, organ procurement, amputation, and standard weapons testing. Victims included not only kidnapped men, women (including pregnant women) and children but also babies born from the systemic rape perpetrated by the staff inside the compound.
After the war, the doctors with Unit 731 were granted war criminal immunity in exchange for providing research data to the U.S., according to Matsumura's research.
"The general headquarters of the U.S. Forces in Japan used immunity for Shiro Ishii (head of Unit 731) and other war criminals in exchange for these research data. But the U.S. Department of Defense explicitly demanded that no documents should ever record anything about the immunity granted to the war criminals, because if it were ever exposed one day, the credibility of the United States as a nation would be utterly ruined," Matsumura said.
The professor's work is not only an important contribution to unveiling Japan's wartime crimes but also a call for Japan's younger generations to face up to the country's history. He expressed the hope that Unit 731's atrocities will one day be included into Japanese history textbooks, despite efforts by the Japanese government to conceal this part of the country's past.
"Although the Japanese government has tried to cover up and conceal these historical facts, I hope that the officials of Japan's Ministry of Education will seriously heed the calls to face history honestly," Matsumura said.
The crimes committed by Unit 731 were among the most gruesome atrocities of the Japanese invasion of China during World War II.
Japanese scholar unveils Unit 731's war crimes of human experiments
