Do you think these are paintings or photos? They are actually Canton Embroidery, one of the four famous embroideries in China.

The themes of Canton Embroidery are mostly dragons, flowers, birds and so on. The finished pieces are mainly used for sacrifice and costume.

These lifelike embroidery works are made by a group of ingenious “embroidery women”, of whom 61-year-old Ruan Xian’e is the most experienced and skillful. She holds a 2-centimeter long and 0.5-millimeter-thick needle, quickly sticks it into the canvas in front of her, pulls it out on the other side, and repeats this process again and again. It seems simple but it takes years of practice and million times of repetitions to accomplish. A single mistake can ruin all previous efforts.

Ruan Xian’e is the representative inheritor of Canton Embroidery, one of Guangdong province intangible cultural heritages. She has started to create embroideries since she was 17 years old.

The double-sided embroidery cape The Garden of Moor has a market price of more than 300 thousand yuan ($44.38 thousand).

This shawl sold to Spain took four months to design. Every petal shows the proudest skills of embroiderers.

Some people think that doing embroidery in 44 years is boring, but Ruan said, “Embroidery is my only interest and my only work. I still want to do it at weekends.”

The Birds Paying Homage to the Phoenix made by Ruan Xian’e achieved national gold award in 1982.

Ruan Xian’e has practiced many skills in her career and cultivated generations of disciples. She innovated “double sided embroidery” with her students.

Besides talent, it is more important to learn patience and perseverance from embroidery. “Many people want to learn but some, without enough patience, often give up after learning for a long time.” Nowadays, Ruan is working hard to make more young people know about Canton Embroidery.

Author | Jessica, Grace

Revisor | Jersey, Jessica

Photo | Foshan China