Out of The Mountains, Back to The Village
In this video, I follow the children of batik artisan Yang Naijin on a journey from Danzhai town back to their hometown, Paidao village—an hour’s drive along winding mountain roads
In this video, I follow the children of batik artisan Yang Naijin on a journey from Danzhai town back to their hometown, Paidao village—an hour’s drive along winding mountain roads
Though Yang earns a living through her craft at Ninghang Batik, she still returns to the fields during the busy farming season, calling on her son and daughter to help. This not only lightens the family’s workload, but also ensures her children do not forget how to farm.
I accompany the sister and brother as they buy fish to raise in the rice paddies and learn about the village’s farming traditions. Along the way, the daughter recalls their difficult past—how she once walked four hours to school and back. Today, in her late twenties, she teaches at a middle school in Danzhai, while her younger brother, in his early twenties, works alongside their mother at the Ninghang Batik workshop in town.
