The area around Lungshan Temple in Taipei’s Wanhua District is filled with stores selling all kinds of Buddhist and Taoist items, from statues of gods to incense burners. There is, however, only one shop, Nanhsin Embroidery, that offers hand-embroidered items for temples, such as flags and robes for deities. The shop was established by Lin Rong-guan (林榕官) more than 70 years ago and is now run by his daughter-in-law Wu Shu-mei (吳淑美), who has been in the trade since she married into the family in 1977.
Wu said embroidering religious pieces is different from creating artistic ones, in that the latter is based on individual creativity while the former requires adherence to strict rules. For example, dragon patterns only adorn robes for male deities while female gods wear phoenix patterns; the God of War is dressed in green and the Goddess of the Sea orange. Both religious and artistic embroidery, however, require substantial patience as it can take months to complete a piece.
At the peak of the trade, there were many embroidery stores in the area and each employed dozens of craftspeople. The number of local artists, as well as the shops in which they worked, shrank as hand embroidery gave way to computer-designed products and cheap imports. Since her father-in-law passed away and her mother-in-law retired a few years ago, Wu has been operating the shop singlehandedly.
In an attempt to preserve the craft, Wu has taken on a few apprentices over the years. However, all of them quit after a few months of endless stitching. She taught embroidery at community colleges for a period of time, only to realize that a few hours of instruction a week might improve the technique of hobby embroiderers but is not enough to turn anyone into a professional. So at Nanhsin, Wu sits alone with her latest project. As her needle speedily pierces the fabric, a dragon slowly forms.
—by Jim Hwang
Outlines of patterns created by Nanhsin Embroidery founder Lin Rong-guan
A design drawn onto a piece of fabric
The store’s seasoned embroidery frame is still going strong, but the craft is fading.
Hand embroidery requires patience as it can take months to complete a single piece.
The demand for hand-embroidered pieces is not what it once was. Today, most religious embroidery is computer-designed and machine-made.
Deities in a local Earth God temple dressed in works by Nanhsin Embroidery
PHOTOS BY CHEN MEI-LING