My Bai Tie-Dye Buy

Bai tie-dye

Today we went to a nice place called ‘Zhoucheng’, it had a market but our main reason for going there was to see the Batik made by the local Bai people.

We caught the bus at the nearest gate of the old town walls and got off at Zhoucheng. We walked into the local market and found no Batik until a Pestering lady met us and said ‘batic’. So we wondered after her like ducklings after their mother, often stopping to look at interesting things then to be chased by the lady and being told that she had Batik! We finally got there and another lady came and helped her show us lovely pattens on what they called batik but is actually tie dye. The traditional colour is blue. They had many pretty pattens and kept bringing out more and trying out their English on us, but they were limited with bigger, smaller and cheaper. Mum really likes the batik so she tried out her Chinese with a little help from me and asked how much it would cost. The ladies started at a very high price and we decided that that was to much so we made our way out, but the ladies would not give up and went lower or offered us the calculator saying ‘you say’ but what ever we put in they said no to, so the ducklings left the nest and went to look for another mother.

We eventually found a shop after a lot of wondering round, it was a pleasant court yard house and people sewing and drying the tie dye. It looked very promising and the man even spoke a little bit of English, much better than the other ladies! He began by showing us the special plant from which they make the dye, then he told us how his grandma sews up the pattens which the gentleman himself had designed, then his father puts them in the dye then they all help to hang them up to dry!

We had a good look a lots of nice pattens and what we thought was nice was that every cloth had a story. The ones we looked at had the wind, the bees, the butterflies, the flowers, the mountains and snow of the area.

In the end mum bought three and dad and the man became friends! His website is mengaihun.taobao.com but you’ll have to be good at reading Chinese if you want to buy anything.