Study on the Evolution of Grass Cloth

This paper gives literature and unearthed fragments of textiles inspection, it prove ramie and hemp textiles in China which have a long history. Because ramie textile fiber has excellent performance, ramie fiber was made of grass cloth, as the source of civilian clothing. In feudal Chinese society, under self-sufficient peasant economy mode, spinning and weaving promote the rapid development of grass cloth. However, with the rise of the cotton crop and the promotion of modern textile industry, manual ramie cloth begin to from the peak to the decline slowly.


The History Literature of Investigation
Ramie fiber is raw material of grass cloth, there are a lot of historical documents which recorded about ramie and ramie clothing in China.From the historical literature, it show that ramie originated in china.As early as in the 14-12 century BC, unearthed in Yin dynasty ruins of the inscriptions which have the hieroglyphs of silk and hemp (Vavilov, 1957).Hieroglyphs is a picture of the text.It ranged between entities and abstract.In the middle of 6th century BC warring states period，"The book of songs -Chen wind-East gate of Pool" describes that can ret ramie in the east gate of the pool (Guo, 1983).Pool's water temperature turn higher quickly under sunlight for a period of time, where oriented on the east side of the pool, it is good place for retting ramie."The book of songs" is the earliest of recorded information about used ramie technology (Zhao, 2011).Dressing related to people's livelihood, so that Zhou dynasty began to set up officials responsible for managing textiles product."Zhou Li -Tianguan Zhongzai" recorded that the full-time officials managed ramie planting and some kinds of species fabrics (Yang, 2000).The ancient clothes made of plant fiber which contained hemp, flax, jute, abutilon,

Self-sufficient Natural Economy of Promotion
Farming men and weaving women society civilization stretches thousands of years in ancient China, small-scale peasant family is the basic unit of society, peasant families assume the functions of the basic economic unit, independent economic decision-making, allocated economic of resources, use of family labor to carry out the production, its members common consumption.Agricultural economy has the characteristics of the family as the unit, Its flexibility is reflected in combined agriculture and family handicraft industry.In the vast rural areas, there are three ways to produce grass cloth.First, textile is to meet the needs of the family members dress; Second, grass cloth can act as rent in kind.Third, when the family of grass cloth production can satisfy the above two conditions, if it have a small amount of surplus, farmers will sell for merchants to in exchange for a small amount of income to support their family.Rural such a proverb: "One not plow farmland, the people whom will face hunger, a woman does not weave, the people whom confront cold."Textile is to ensure that the family members wear warm which is fundamental basis for economic self-sufficiency.In ancient China officials would encourage civilians sericulture, spinning, weaving grass cloth.Clothing is a necessity of life, in the era of material scarcity, grass cloth is a precious goods.In the face of natural disasters or war, people will have a great influence on the issue of clothing.Tang dynasty poet Du Fu's "Shihao officials" in the records of such a story: Men went out to fight in the family, and women went out work without a complete set of clothes, the day was very difficult.There is no source material of the ramie textile, Of course wear became a problem.Farming men and weaving women symbol a small family of independence.Poet Fan Chengda in the "Four seasons scenery" wrote: During the day labor work in the field, in the evening women weave cloth at light.Even day and night was a day of similar unremitting toil, but life is still very hard.The Ming dynasty Wang Mian "Jiangnan women" wrote: "Weaving cloth and harvesting grain served for the rent of land."Textile attached to the family in the production, and become a part of the family to pay the rent."Yongping Zhili hall annals" recorded: "male farm for easy to eat, female textile for make a living."When the commodity economy has a great development, some farmers will have extra grass cloth, then to market for exchange.
In the feudal society of China, the small peasant economy occupy the most of position.It require the vast number of working people to meet the needs of wear through the textile production at objective condition.It can be said that the mode prompted grass cloth of development in China.Today, the intangible cultural heritage grass cloth production process of location, Yichun, Liuyang, Ronglong, Chongqing still retain twiddling ramie threads for hand-made crafts.Inspected the local of grass cloth, it seems that can see the traces of Chinese ancient agricultural civilization.

Affected by Cotton Spinning
Compared with bast fiber crops, cotton textile higher performance.In the early of Yuan dynasty Wang Zhen "Agricultural book" recorded: Cotton planting technology was introduced into south from north, its planting is not restricted by geographical location.Textiles made of cotton, as light-warm as the woolen, its softness can be compared with the high quality silk.Cotton planting requirement less the condition soil.Compared to the silkworm breeding.Firstly, people worry about the soil fertile not enough to mulberry leaves.second, people worry about silkworm diseases or death.Compared with ramie textile, less twist threads such a process, textile efficiency is higher than ramie textile.At the end of Yuan dynasty, Huang Daopo improved cotton textile technology on the basis of Li nationality cotton textile technology, and designed a series of advanced cotton textile tools, promote the development of cotton industry in China.Yuan and Ming dynasties government promote cotton plant and cotton textile industry in order to national prosperity and social stability, government has taken the cotton goods tax and the area of cotton planting is strictly regulated by law.All of policy made cotton began to grow large area in China.

Modern Manual Ramie Textile Industry of Crisis
In modern, Western with advanced textile technology, they dumped a large number of mechanical weaving cloth to China, brought a fatal blow to Chinese textile.European industry began in the textile industry, in the 18th century half leaf, spinning roller mechanism and weaving shuttle mechanism were invented, driving power of the British textile industry became slowly concentrating model of industrial production.With the opening of the country, because Western the quality of textiles higher than China's handmade cloth, and the price is cheaper, it squeezed seriously the living space of handmade cloth.The Westernization Movement in modern China one of the commanding generals Zhang Zhidong advice to emperor Guangxu in the plans to open weave layout proposal: From China with Western trade, the effects of trade projects, every year Western sold China of cloth more than ever before, brought handmade cloth turn less in China, including the original fabric handmade cloth began to buy Western cloth.In 1888, China needs to cost fifty million ounces of silver to Western imported textiles, which is a heavy burden (Sun, 1957).Japan launched all-out war of aggression against China in 1937.War to the Chinese self-sufficient natural economy in the countryside brings great damage, many grass cloth workshops have closed down, the decline of China modern handicraft industry grass cloth, on the one hand, due to the decline of Chinese fortunes, China's modern industry is almost at a standstill.on the other hand, the traditional grass cloth industry backward technology, hand weaving cost high, lost market competitiveness.

Conclusion
It has a history of 6000 years in China about ramie planting, ramie textile into grass clothing have a great of development in China.Because ramie is a kind of fine natural textile fiber, use it made of fine ramie garments, perspire all over non-stick body, ventilation and heat dissipation, cool, natural antibacterial of superiority.Grass clothing belong to the unique natural texture and excellent gloss effect.Coarse ramie lines can be twisted into rope or woven sacks.Fineness enough ramie, it can do mosquito nets, curtain, cloth pad.Through grass cloth reprocessing, can produce grass cloth fan, grass cloth embroidered and grass cloth painting and other crafts.It is a pity that ramie production have natural deficiency.Ramie fiber due to insufficient degumming, less than cotton soft, hairiness has prickle, drape well enough and color fastness.Cotton began to hit the states of ramie after Yuan dynasty.Ramie dominant position is replaced by cotton apparel fabrics in the mid-Ming Dynasty.Today with the improvement of people's living standard, the awakening of consciousness of traditional culture, under the advocate green natural and environmental awareness of guidelines, grass cloth began to win some cutting-edge designers attention.if ramie textile technology make a great progress, production process get improvement, promote the fashion of grass cloth of reconstruction, it can be assumed that will have a better tomorrow. Fig