Hope4China's Children: Guangxi Love Balls & Liu San Jie

The Zhuang peoples have long been famed for their embroidery skills.

These beautiful examples are known as

XiuQiu

or more commonly Zhuang Love Balls.

The balls are made of twelve coloured silk cloth segments

whose pattern indicates the connection of twelve petals or months.

Each petal (month) has a mascot.

A mascot could be a plum blossom, bamboo, swallows, dragon, chrysanthemum, orchid or phoenix.

All these symbols represent reunion and eternal happiness.

The petals typically are red, yellow and green.

Traditionally embroidered by hand by young girls

to give to the man they wished to marry.

Originally love gifts, a Zhuang woman would climb a mountain and sing out to her fiance who she hadn’t yet met face-to-face. He would answer with song.

If she liked the sound of his song, she would present him with an embroidered ball as a sign of affection

– the bigger the ball the greater the love.

An old Zhuang saying that is passed on from mother to daughter.

“If you don’t embroider, you won’t find a good man.”

So every Zhuang girl learned to embroider from an early age.

Liu Sanjie

was, as the story goes, the third-born daughter of a man surnamed Liu, who lived centuries ago (in the Tang Dynasty: 618–907) in Guangxi Province. She became known for her singing as various dignified local oppressors came to her village and were left speechless and defeated by her tuneful and witty songs.

The legend goes that she was wooed by a boy named A Niu (阿牛 /ah-nyoh/ "Bull"), who sung replies to her songs at the Big Banyan Tree in Yangshuo County.

As was the custom, Liu Sanjie gave A Niu an embroidered ball

to signify she liked him and he could pursue her.

A Niu promptly tossed the ball across the river, high onto a rock the other side, where nobody could reach it

and it would stay as an everlasting reminder of their Love.

The story of Liu San Jie is still enacted for tourists.....