胡尹萍 Hu Yinping – Green Hats and Xiao Fang

Artist and knitwear pioneer

Interview on March 10th at Stuff’d, Jianchang hutong, Dongcheng

胡尹萍 – 绿色的帽子和小芳

从事艺术创作，针织品开发

于3月10日东城区箭厂胡同赛Stuff’d采访

KL: okay, you’ve just recently had an exhibition in Arrow factory gallery in this hutong (Jianchang, Dongcheng) with a lot of knitted green hats, can you explain what you’re trying to do with these ideas?

HYP: The green hats on this exhibition were initially made several years ago by my mother. Actually in 2015, when I went back to my hometown, I found that my mom had knitted two big bags of beanies. That was her routine task.

KL: 最近你在 Arrow Factory 画廊（东城区箭厂胡同）里办了一个展览，都是关于一些手工编织的绿帽子。这些帽子怎么来的？是什么突然让你办这个展览呢？

胡尹萍：这个展览是我母亲以前织的帽子，但是实际上这些帽子我不是为了展览而准备的。2015年的时候，我偶然回家时发现妈妈正织帽子装了两麻袋，心里很难受。我发现这是她日常中在做的工作。

KL: So, your mother’s work made you sad because she works so hard to make them, are you telling this story or there is a big story?

HYP: Basically, during my mother’s era, there was a tradition that a woman has to learn a skill before she gets married. Because hand knitting was a necessary and valuable skill in the 1980s when people lived an impoverished life, it was also an essential requirement of a prospective wife. After China’s reform and opening up, knitting was gradually replaced by mass production of factories and began to disappear. I was born in 1983, life was so difficult at that time, I still remember when I was young, my family didn’t have spare money to buy new clothes, so my mom made all of the clothes for the whole family, including scarfs, sweaters, pants, hats...if the clothes were worn out, my mom would mend them, even sometimes I had to wear my sister's cast-offs which had a lot of patches.

KL：所以你妈妈的工作让你难受，因为她要花那么多心血在上面。你能讲讲这个故事的来龙去脉吗？

胡尹萍: 其实在我母亲那个年代，女孩子嫁人之前，要学习一门手艺。男人选择妻子时有个标准，会织毛衣的女人是吃香的，因为在当时的八十年代，生活很贫穷，一个女生要是会织毛衣可以让家里人都能穿暖和，这是一个很必要的生活技能。但是到了八十年代改革开放后，中国进入快速发展阶段，家庭妇女为家人织毛衣的工作在慢慢被批量的工厂生产替代了，这门手艺也渐渐不被使用了。我是1983年出生的，当时的生活水品还是很低，在我童年很长的一段时间里，我穿的都是母亲给我手织的毛衣毛裤围巾，当时母亲缝缝补补给我穿，我姐姐哥哥穿过的会给我继续穿。

KL: So, you were born in Deng Xiaoping’s period of opening of China. Is the idea that China has changed so much but your mother hasn’t, so the hats come to symbolize the big change before Deng and after Deng?

HYP: Yes, kind of, in fact, the impact of any national policy on a small town was very profound, I believe that many people who were born in the 80s or 70s all dressed in clothes knitted by their mom. When I grew up, I left my hometown and went to a high school in a city. When I moved to the new environment, I was so impressed by the outside world and how life was so different from what I had in my hometown. I found that the clothes shopes sell are really stylish with good fabric that I’ve nerver seen before. By contrast, the sweaters my mom knitted were out of date . I still remember that when I was in junior high school, I had to pinch and scrape in order to save money for buying some trendy clothes, such as LI-NING, ADIDAS, METERSBONWE. So from then on, I didn’t dressed in the clothes my mom knitted anymore, and my mother gradually gave up this work.

Due to reform and opening up, a lot of people of my age left their hometown and chose to work and live in metropolises, such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou. This is a very common phenomenon in China now. I’m part of this migration wave. I left home and went to Chengdu for study, then came to Beijing for work and have stayed until now. Now I usually go home every two years.

KL:你生活在邓小平改革开放这个背景下，所以你想表达的是中国发生了很大的变化，而你的妈妈依然未变，这个帽子就成了改革开放前后的标志？

胡尹萍:哈哈，帽子代表不了那么多，谈不上表达，但确实在大环境下对个体是受到影响的，我们都是被大时代影响了的，其实国家的任何一个政策，波及到一个小镇，影响都很大的。我相信在我们这一代的，包括70年代末的人，都有穿过母亲亲手织的衣服。

胡尹萍：后来我上学离开家，到了外面的世界，突然被惊到了：哇，外面的世界好丰富啊，发现我妈妈织的毛衣很土，店里卖的衣服是那么新鲜，见都没见过的布料。上初中高中的时候，我会省钱去买一些当时很时尚的牌子：李宁，阿迪达斯，美特斯邦威这些，之后就不穿母亲织的衣服了，觉得土了。那段时间里，母亲渐渐不织毛衣了，因为大家也不穿了嘛。我们这个年代的人，因改革开放，各种政策，大学扩招，选择到北上广这种大城市生活和工作，这是中国很普遍的现象。我是这个浪潮中的一员。我离开老家，到成都去念书，再到北京生活工作到现在。现在两年回家一次。

KL: Where is your hometown?

HYP: Luzhou, Sichuan province.

KL:你老家哪儿的？

胡尹萍: 四川泸州。

KL: Where is it? Like near Chengdu?

HYP: I think it’s about three-hour drives to Chengdu. I’m a typical local person from Luzhou.

HYP: Once, I returned to my hometown for an exhibition and didn’t let my mother know, and I found that my mother was knitting hats, and I was told that a purchaser from a hat factory wanted to buy my mother’s hats and was going to pay my mom 2 yuan per hat. Usually, one hat is around 7 to 8 yuan, the purchaser pays too little, and I asked her why did you start knitting hats again? And she said there is nothing to do in her life, she likes to kill time by knitting hats. I suddenly realized that my mother still hasn’t changed from the way she used to live.

There are a lot of women playing card games and Mahjong in the town, this is what the housewives often do, but my mother holds the opinion that as she always loses at cards, she would prefer to spend her time doing something meaningful rather than waste money on card games, even though the salary is meager.

KL: 离成都多远呀？

胡尹萍: 离成都有三小时的车程。我是典型的小镇青年。哈哈哈。2015年的时候，我在成都有一个展览，我悄悄回了趟家，没告诉我妈妈。然后我发现她在织帽子。是因为有帽子收购商在我们老家来收帽子，一年去次，每个阿姨都要备货几百顶，她们自己买线，价格很低廉，线是劣质的，还有不来收购的风险。我问过母亲为什么又开始织帽子？她说打发时间。我们小镇很多人都打牌，但我妈妈觉得，打牌容易输钱，与其打牌还不如找点活赚点钱，她是一个典型的传统妇女，她生活是，洗完衣服的水是必须要冲马桶的。

KL: That sounds like my mom, too.

HYP: I understand my mother, she was born in the 50s to 60s in the days of planned economy. Thrift is implanted in her character under the background of food rationing and other hardships. She is accustomed to living in a way of saving money that determines the way she looks at the world. Then she would think in this way: “ if someone pays me, I will knit hats no matter how much he gives me, even 1 kuai, 2 kuai.” But you know, some woolen yarn is of such poor quality that sometimes her hands blistered.

HYP: I can’t tell her about all of things I’m preaparing because I want to pretect her. I have to pre-arrange all of stuff before she involves in this project. I don’t regard myself as an artist, I feel more like a director, you know, because this story is like a movie which exists in reality. So that’s the story about the hats from my mom.

HYP: After that, I decided to help her. Initially, I wanted to collect my mom’s hats, but I knew she would not be willing to give them to me. Then I found one of my college classmates - Xiaofang. (I named her) She would love to help me after she knew this story, and then under my instructions, she found my mother and told her that a French hat company based in Lyons wanted to buy her hats and provided her a good price. My mom was so happy and agreed to cooperate with Xiaofang.

My mother can’t speak Mandarin, and doesn’t know how to use Wechat, so it was a little difficult for her to start business with Xiaofang, especially when Xiaofang paid my mother by WeChat, my mom didn’t know how to withdraw money, as well as she fact she doesn’t trust the internet, so for a long time, she thought if she would suffer a loss through the internet. But after several deals, she gradually got used to WeChat and knew how to accept the “transfer,” although she still doesn’t know how to pay by Wechat.

Once, I put the bag of hats in my studio and my friend Hezhi who is also an artist, asked me what was going on, and I told the story to him, then he put forward an idea that I should hold an exhibition. Later, he spoke to Arrow Factory and they gave me an exhibition in November last year. Wangwei, the boss of this project, approved the proposal after only 10 days.

Then I began to prepare but I didn’t want to sell these hats, because the products are my mom’s painstaking effort. I want to collect “her time,” and, as she is far away from me, these hats became a way in which to understand my mother’s life. But one day, an idea came to me. What if I arranged for a factory to produce and sell them? So I went to a factory and asked them to produce some hats the same as mine, but they told me that these hats cannot be produced by machines, only by hand, they have to find the folks who have the knitting skill to finish them, so it reminded me of the hat purchaser in my hometown, they all act the same way, so I would prefer to have my neighbors earn money rather than let these purchasers and factories take my money.

The hat was 3 kuai in the beginning, while I paid 30 kuai per hat to my mom under the guise of Xiaofang. My mother made a good profit, while some of the neighbors are jealous about this, and they made ironic remarks to my mom: “What ‘s the point of making green hats?!” “Are you making your husband a “green hat”? (This is a Chinese idiom, in English it means the husband is cuckolded).

I found these neighbors (middle-aged women) to knit hats with my mom, and I set up a special purpose entity (a fake company) and had these neighbors work for me. Now there are 30-50 people working for me, but they don’t know I’m their boss. In their mind, their boss is Xiaofang. Currently, We are trying to knit more hats with other colors, because green hats don’t meet the customers’ needs and Xiaofang is in Sichuan province to supervise the process.

KL：你母亲和我母亲很像诶。

胡尹萍: 这很正常，父母出生在50-60年代，中国计划经济时代嘛，当时物质匮乏，他们习惯一种生活方式：节约，这是长期的生活习惯，加上她有这么一个手艺，她就觉得“有人给钱，干嘛不织”哪怕1块钱。但那个毛钱非常差，她的手都织出水泡了

胡尹萍：因为现在所有的事情都不能告诉她，我希望她能有正常的状态不收干扰，为此我需要做大量的工作，为所有接触的东西都要预先排演好，我希望把她保护起来，有时候我觉得自己不像是艺术家，更像是导演，像现实里的剧场电影。

我发现她织帽子的事情后，我想帮她改进下毛线。我想找个人替代我去收藏我妈妈的帽子，肯定不愿意为我做“自己人不能赚自己人的钱”，我找了一个大学同学，让她扮演外贸商去收我妈的帽子，并且给她好价钱，我妈妈果然答应了。我帮朋友取了个新名字叫小芳。我妈妈不会说普通话嘛，我就让她用微信联系小芳。小芳一般给我妈妈付款都直接微信转账，刚开始，她相信网络，但是交易几次之后，她渐渐发现还是挺可靠的，然后她开始了和小芳的“互联网生意”直到现在。但她只会在微信上收红包，不会转账发红包。后来一位朋友偶然知道这事并推荐给箭厂做了这次展览。去年12月份低实施了这个项目。我不想卖我妈的帽子，我只想收藏她的时间。但很多人想买，我想有人喜欢能佩戴也是价值的一种。工厂机器做不出来，只能找人工手做，她说过她的邻居很羡慕她。

之后我假冒成一个公司，找这些阿姨织帽子。截止目前有30-50人在织，老家都没人打麻将了，麻将馆都快倒闭了，麻将馆老板现在也开始织了。在他们眼里，小芳就是她们的”老板”。小芳现在一直在四川准备其他不同颜色的帽子，因为单单绿色的话，很难卖出去，中国人不喜欢戴绿帽子。

KL : How much you selling them for?

HYP: It varies. Between 90 and 300 yuan per hat, depending on the quality of wool.

HYP: I’m developing a new brand called “Hu Xiaofang” in Taobao store, which aims use knitting to spread the warmth of family to everyone so they will recall their childhood memories. Also, I wanted to provide jobs for these women who other than gossiping and taking care of their children are idle and fooling around every day, .

KL：你打算卖多少钱？

胡尹萍: 价格在几十到三百之间，根据不一样的毛线质量而定。我现在做的品牌叫胡小芳，我想把胡小芳做成一个纯手工织品品牌，把这种童年的温暖分享给更多的人，并且我希望那些会织帽子的阿姨都有工作，这帮妇女都太无聊了，天天都在家带小孩，现在有工作也是件很有意义的事情。

KL: Will your mom find out?

HYP: Not yet. I hope not, she is so busy now, she has endless hours to knit and work, and teach her neighbors how to knit and sew. These neighbors have three-days training before they can knit by themselves.

KL：你妈妈会不会发现啊？

胡尹萍: 目前还没发现，她现在很忙，因为有30多个人在一起织毛衣。因为这些阿姨在上岗之前，要学三天，才能独自织毛衣。

KL: These are designed by your mom? She made the pattern?

HYP: Yes.

KL：这些图案，款式都是你妈妈设计的吗？

胡尹萍: 是的。

KL: Why you still get your mum to knit hats in green wool when no one would buy them?

HYP: Because green color was better for her eyes .

KL: 绿帽子不那么畅销，你为什么还让妈妈织绿色的毛衣呀？

胡尹萍：因为绿色保护眼睛啊。

KL: How much profit do you hope to make? Do you think you will sell a lot then make a lot of money? Is the art or story more important than profit?

HYP: Actually I hope I can make money from this business, because it can keep my mother’s job and provide these neighbors a long-term job. As for me, I don’t depend on this business to make a living, the art exhibition will end, it’s temporary. Every hat has its own story behind it, I hope people buy the story behind, not just the hat itself. I don’t think selling these arts works will reduce the value of arts. And I don’t believe that arts are only displayed in gallery, arts should be in everywhere. The original intention of this exhibition is not for art, I just want to help my mom and these middle-age ladies, and show them a new lifestyle.

KL：你希望能赚多少利润？你觉得自己卖的价格高不高？你想不想多赚点？你觉得艺术比利润更重要吗？

胡尹萍: 其实我希望赚钱，因为这样就可以让这些阿姨能长期有这份工作。但我本身不依靠这个赚钱。赚钱了就能运转自负盈亏，我不能一直投入，让阿姨们有一份相对的生活来源和一份有意义的工作。我不觉得这对我的艺术有损耗，如果艺术的定义狭隘到这样，我宁愿不做艺术。我做这事的初衷是为了母亲，现在能扩大到家乡的阿姨们，为何不做呢？不是所有在画廊里展示的才是艺术，艺术是无处不在的。

Hu Yinping is currently running a crowdfunding campaign to create a space for more women to knit in comfort. Check it out and donate here.

胡尹萍以为更多的阿姨创造一个可以舒舒服服织帽子的空间为目的开始了一个众筹项目。戳这里去看看吧！