2021 marks the Year of the Ox on Chinese calendar. In Chinese culture, the ox symbolizes hardworking, diligence, forging ahead against difficulties. It also suggests power, energy, and perseverance. There are auspicious phrases especially coined for the Year of the Ox. And artists, designers and craftsmen have created various ox images in celebration of the Year of Ox.

Embroidered Scarves

Lin Xia is a national master of embroidery living and working in Taizhou. In her career as an embroidery master, she has blazed unprecedented trails in embroidery. Her three-dimension embroidery creates a spatial beauty, which is patented. Her business is an industrial leader.

The ox images she designed and embroidered onto scarves for the year 2021 are more than vivid and lovely. The ox looks cartoonish and cute, with an extremely long tail which adds a delightful touch to the image. With such a lovely ox image, scarves offer a feel of warmth, romance, sunshine, hope.

The Fortune Box

The fortune box is designed by Ye Dan, a master of weaving, printing and dyeing fabrics in a traditional way that goes back to more than 2,000 years ago. The traditional technique is called Jia Xie, which originated in the Qin and the Han dynasties and flourished in the Tang. During the Tang Dynasty, fabrics made with the technique were special for the use in royal palaces. In particular, the fabrics were dyed in five colors during the Tang Dynasty. The technique spread to the lower social hierarchies in the Song and the Yuan. It is well preserved in the south of Zhejiang. All the fabrics printed and dyed with the technique present a blue background and white patterns. The fabrics used to be an important component of a girl’s dowry in southern Zhejiang. It is now on a national list of intangible cultural heritages.

The box he designed for the Year of the Ox is a gift pack containing a painting, a porcelain ornament, a calendar, red envelopes, a lollipop, and a bookmark.

Silver Kettles

Hu Xinchao and his son Hu Kaijie began to design a silver kettle in April 2020, after Covid-19 pandemic had hit China hard. The two masters wanted to inspire people to forge ahead. Of the six ox images, five are from the Five Oxen, a painting of the Tang Dynasty, and one is a reproduction of the bull on Wall Street. The six oxen look sinewy and powerful. The five oxen in the oriental style symbolize the spirit of hardworking and bravery whereas the Wall Street bull suggests fortune and power. The six oxen showcase the fusion of the west and the east. The number of oxen is a sign of success.

The Hu family started making silver artifacts in the Qing Dynasty. Hu Xinchao is the 9th-generation descendant of the craft and his son Hu Kaijie is the 10th-generation master. The father and the son have not only carried on the family craftsmanship but also innovated.

Some silver kettles and silver tableware they made have been selected as state gifts, the first of this kind since the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949. The father and the son are known as masters number one in the circles of silver kettle making.