Children's hats exhibition displays traditional Shanxi culture

A Jin-style hat for children. [Photo by Liu Xing]

230 hats for children, from the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) to the present, went on show at the Shanxi Arts Museum in Shanxi province on Tuesday.

Being showed in Shanxi for the first time, the hats were all in Jin-style, as "Jin" is the abbreviation of the province.

There are four units at the exhibition, presenting the crafting, function, and cultural value of the children's Jin-style hats.

Multiple hats were featured, including tiger-head hats with colorful embroidery from the Qing Dynasty. The exhibition also displayed decorations on children's hats, such as a child made of agate.

Jin-style children's hats are often made by women farmers, and embedded with strong local features.

Through exchanges between different families, the crafts have been kept and passed down by generations.

"The embroidery on Jin-style hats for children is typical Jin-style embroidery on hard materials," Li Li, a staff member at the museum, said. "There are many kinds of children's hats in Shanxi. They are made to protect children from being hurt by the changes of four distinctive seasons."

The event, running until Nov 10, took the museum two years to prepare. It is being simultaneously showed in another city in Shanxi, Jincheng, as well as Fuzhou in Fujian province.

"The exhibition shows childhood memories of the locals. We intend to let more people know about this traditional folk craft in Shanxi", Li said.