China

Lu Yuanjiong was born in 1987, graduated from China Academy of Art. Since 2013 to 2016, Lu Yuanjiong has been working and traveling around the world. During then, he directed the film Hang Er Mian documentary, and about the youth in Iran etc.

Zhou Ping was born in 1952, he started working in Hang Er Mian when he was 17 years old and retired in 2012. Now he lives in Xiaoshan, Hangzhou.

“Hang Er Mian” is a state-owned textile mill within less than one-kilometer distance from my home. It has shut down today. My parents were employees in this enterprise. My mother was a weaver(Dang Che Gone)while my father was a repairman(Bao Qian Gong).

Xiao Shan Textile Mill was found in 1985. My father was not born at that time. The Mill was renamed “The Second Hangzhou Textile Mill” (abbreviated as “Hang Er Mian”) in 1968, the year my mother was born.

In the following years, the Mill developed gradually, setting up four workshops: South Weaving(Nan Zhi), North Weaving(Bei Zhi), South Spinning(Nan Fang), and North Spinning(Bei Fang). Finally, it became the largest textile mill in 1980s in Zhejiang. Some of the former workers in the mill said that there was a kind of yarn called “Wan Nian Hong(Thousand Year Red)” that sold best during that period.

My mother graduated from junior high school 1986 when she was 18. Then, she was introduced by a middleman into “Hang Er Mian”. At that time, the mill was in its heyday. After three years, she, like many other young workers in Hang Er Mian, married my father and gave birth to me a year later. In 1990s, with the policy of reform and opening up, the mill went through Ya Ding(limit on the scale of production), bankruptcy and restructuring. When I was ten, the mill, similar to all other state-owned enterprises, faced difficulties in its business operation. My parents left the mill and never worked in fields relating to weaving.

With the help of Mr. Zhou Ping and some old workers in Hang Er Mian, I collected several images about the production and life in it. I do not collect these materials for a retrospect and arrangement of history. Rather, I hope to seek for some “traces” of those who once worked in this mill. These images reflect the cotton fabrics they produced, which can be seen as a trace that was extended and concentrated in the words “Hang Er Mian”.