Artistic handkerchiefs raise money to plant trees in Inner Mongolia

By Xu Jing (chinadaily.com.cn)

Updated: 2015-11-09

More than 400 Chinese entrepreneurs attended a charity event in Beijing last Friday. During the three-hour activity, 1, 900 sets of handkerchiefs designed by seven noted Chinese artists were sold out, and all the proceeds will be used to plant sacsaoul trees on the Alashan plateau in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

To support the "100 million sacsaoul trees" project, a public welfare project of planting trees in Alashan plateau founded by a nongovernmental charity Alashan SEEl, staff members of artplus.com, a platform for securely managing media art ownership and multi-channel exhibitions, invited seven Chinese contemporary artists including Ding Yi, Tan Ping, Wang Jianwei, Ma Chengzhe, Peng Bo, Leng Guangmin and Yanlei, and set up the creative event with the theme of "Long time no see, Mr. handkerchief".

All the handkerchiefs are made of purified cotton. Each set consists of seven different designs with a total price of 1966 yuan. Each purchase of a handkerchief is enough to buy 20 sacsaoul trees, which will prevent erosion on 200 square meters of sandy land.

According to Wang Limin, chief secretary of Alashan SEE, the activity aimed to raise the public's awareness about environmental deterioration, and attracted more cultural and artistic institutions to participate in environmental protection.

All the artists involved in the activity selected works for the theme carefully, and agreed to give the copyright free of charge. Tan Ping told the Chinese media that he wished to arouse Chinese people’s memory of using handkerchiefs in the past with his creation.

Ma Chengzhe, whose hometown is adjacent to Alashan, believed that prevention of desertification was crucial for Inner Mongolia, and even northern China. He wished to raise greater awareness for environmental problems through his work.

Famous Chinese entrepreneur Ren Zhiqiang, former chairman of Huayuan Property Co. Ltd, attended the activity on Friday night, where he sang a popular Chinese folk rhyme Diu Shou Juan (hunt-the-thimble), and delivered a speech off the cuff.

Ren said that a lot of Chinese factories refused to produce handkerchiefs, because demand was not strong enough. He wished encourage more people to use handkerchiefs, a more environmentally friendly lifestyle, in their daily life through such an activity.

There were 2016 sets of handkerchiefs produced for the "100 million sacsaoul trees". Aside from those sold Friday night, another 116 sets will be auctioned off in Shanghai on November 19.