My name is Cicely. I was born and raised in a small county in the middle part of China. Since I was in primary school, I have had a great passion for everything related to art and handicrafts. My favourite TV program during those years was a British show called Art Attack, which could be considered my art enlightenment.
我叫曦瑶，在中国中部的一个小县城出生长大。从小学起,我就对美术和手工艺相关的一切充满热情。那些年我最喜欢的一个电视节目是英国的《艺术创想》，这个节目可以说是我的艺术启蒙。
Before I graduated from middle school, I spent nearly all my spare time in art hobby, though I did not have as many resources as I wanted. However, I failed to choose art as my education subject due to several limitations in my high school time, learning science instead. Then I could hardly find any chance to choose an art major when I was going to college. At last, I chose a major called Textile Engineering, that I thought would reach art and design.
在我初中毕业之前，尽管资源有限，我把几乎所有的业余时间都投入在了我的美术爱好上。然而，高中时受多方面因素限制，我没能走艺考道路而学了理科，之后在大学选专业的时候便很难选到一个艺术相关的专业。最终，我选了一个叫纺织工程的学科，因为我觉得它可以和艺术与设计沾边。
Textiles could be related to art indeed, but the subject of textile engineering emphasized more on science, technology and production issues. I was a little disappointed at the early stages of my study. Yet several years later, I extremely appreciated what I was taught during my college years. I used to be attracted by beautiful outlooks and textures of different kinds of fabrics. After I gained a bachelor’s degree in Textile Engineering, I obtained much knowledge and experience in the process of producing textiles from fibre materials, especially the process of weaving cotton fabrics. Besides, I started to be attracted by the aesthetics of technical structures and scientific principles of making textiles.
纺织品，的确可以和艺术相关，但纺织工程更强调科技与生产上的问题。最初进入专业学习时，我有些失望，但几年后我十分感谢我从这段教育经历中学到的内容。我向来容易被不同布料的美丽外观与质感所吸引，而在我拿到纺织工程的学士学位后，我已掌握许多从纤维材料到纺织品的加工生产过程上的知识与经验，尤其是机织棉布（棉机织物）的生产过程。此外，我开始感受到纺织品制造过程中的技术结构与科学原理之美。
我的本科毕业设计
2015年夏天旅行的火车票
During my undergraduate years, I was always looking for ways to insert my interest in art into my background in engineering. In 2016, I designed and wove a plain weave reversible layered fabric with my teammates, which won the first prize in the 8th Red-green-blue Cup of China University Fabric Design Competition. For my bachelor’s degree, I designed a yarn-dyed cut-back-yarn fabric in plain weave inspired by my production practice in a weaving factory. I turned my design into pieces of fabric on a sample weaving machine and wrote a thesis about its production technology. Eventually, I graduated from Textile Engineering.
本科期间，我一直在尝试将我的艺术爱好融入工程背景之中。2016年，我和我的队友一起设计并织造了一块平纹表里换层织物，这一设计在第八届红绿蓝杯中国高校纺织品设计大赛中得了一等奖。本科毕业之前，我利用我在一个织布厂实习的过程中取得的灵感，设计了一种平纹剪线色织物。我用一台小样机织了几块我所设计的织物小样，也写了一本论文介绍我的设计及其生产中关键技术。最后，我从纺织工程专业毕业了。
I had always been weak in learning history before I went to the university. This is one of the reasons that I could not learn art in high school. However, I have become a big fan of it since my second year of university. In the summer of 2015, I took a 40-day solo trip towards Dunhuang from Wuxi in China, visiting a lot of historical and cultural sites, which broadened my eyes and influenced my life dramatically. When I was about to choose fabric design as my future career, I found a tiny research direction for textile postgraduates called Ancient Textile Materials and Technology. It seems to have all my interests and knowledge of textiles mixed. Later, I started a successive postgraduate and doctoral program of study in textile history.
上大学前，我一直不擅长学历史，这也是我高中不能选文科的原因之一。但在大二之后，我对历史产生了浓厚兴趣。2015年夏天，我以敦煌为终点，从无锡出发，在国内独自旅行了40天，参观了许多历史与文化遗迹。这次旅行令我大开眼界，也为我的人生带来了深远的影响。在我差点要走上面料设计师的职业规划道路时，我在面向纺织研究生的专业里发现了一个非常小众的研究方向，名字叫古代纺织材料与技术。这个方向似乎将我所有的兴趣特长与专业背景混合到了一起，于是我开始了在纺织史研究领域的硕博连读项目。
I started my journey in textile history without any professional background in history or archaeology. In the first several years, I struggled with limited resources, unknown information and doubts from most of the people around me. Sometimes I was excited about finding something rarely known but significant for my research. Later, it would turn to be an upsetting moment because it was hard to find someone to share with and be understood. Only those who experienced similar situations could have understood this feeling.
在没有任何历史学或考古学专业背景的基础上，我开始了对纺织史的研究。头几年由于难以接触的资源和未知的信息，我经历了长期的艰难探索，也常常遭受周围大部分人的质疑。有时我会因发现了鲜为人知但对我的研究特别重要的信息而异常兴奋，随后就会出现一个难以分享的沮丧时刻。只有拥有类似经验的人可以理解这种感受。
Fortunately, I started to know more like-minded people the more I got into my research and interested field. I would like to show my greatest and most sincere thanks to many people I met on the road, among whom some had generously shared important information, some had worked with me with warm accompany, some had given me unique opportunities and some had been listening to my difficulties with unlimited love and kindness……
幸运的是，随着我在自己的研究和兴趣范围内涉猎越深，我认识了越来越多的同类。特别想感谢我这一路遇到的许多人，在他们中，有些人慷慨地向我分享过重要信息，有些人曾与我并肩作战给予了温馨陪伴，有些人为我提供了难得的机会，还有些人一直用无限的爱与关怀伴我度过艰难时光……
I love travelling, especially to historical places. Since I became a researcher on textile history, I have started to pay more attention to traditional textiles and fibre materials on the road. Moreover, after completing my bachelor’s study, I gained financial independence and more information to support myself travelling abroad. In some cases, I can even travel with funding.
我喜欢旅行，尤其是去有历史感的地方。自从我开始研究纺织史，便将更多注意力投入到了旅途上的传统纺织品和纺织材料。大学毕业后，我也获得了可以支撑我出境旅行的经济独立和更多信息。有时候，我甚至可以靠经费旅行。
Before the pandemic, I had been to Taiwan, Uzbekistan, the United Kingdom, Jeju Island, Vietnam and Singapore. In 2021, I stayed in South Korea for half a year to investigate historical materials related to my research, also visited some historical places. However, I haven’t had any output about my knowledge and experience about textile history I gained these years. At the end of 2022, I came to Denmark and would work in Copenhagen as a visiting PhD student for one year, which would deeply influence my life again as I could foresee. Never had I met such a lot of people with a common interest in and specializing focus on textile history and archaeology. Plus, I got the unprecedented convenience to visit historical sites and museums in and around Europe, no matter about textiles or not.
疫情前我去过台湾、乌兹别克斯坦、英国、济州岛、越南和新加坡。2021年，我为了调查和我研究课题有关的史料，在韩国待了半年，也参观了一些当地的史迹。然而，我从未有与我这些年积累的有关纺织史的知识与经历相关的内容输出。2022年底我来到丹麦，将在哥本哈根以访问博士生身份工作一整年。可以预见，这一经历将再次对我的人生产生深远影响。我从未遇见过如此多有兴趣并专注于纺织史与纺织考古的人，也获得了能拜访欧洲及其周边众多史迹与博物馆（无论是否与纺织相关）的前所未有的便利。
In addition, after coming to Denmark and being connected to textile history and archaeology in the European context, I found a gap between the Western and Eastern worlds to understand textiles and their history. As I can feel now, this gap exists due to different languages and terms, access to knowledge and resources, as well as historical and cultural backgrounds, etc.
来丹麦以后，我接触了欧洲语境下的纺织史与纺织考古，也发现东西方世界在理解纺织品和纺织史时存在间隙。就我目前能感受到的来说，这种间隙来源于不同的语言和术语，不同的知识与资源获取途径，以及不同的历史文化背景等。
So, I decided to write this bilingual blog. I named it Textilog to share stories and information about archaeological or traditional textiles I encountered in my narrow but special journey. I will write them in the first person with a personal view but the main focus would be on historical textiles. The language sequence in each article would start with the one that would be more convenient for me to write first. For example, if I would write articles with information obtained mainly in Chinese, I would write in Chinese first and English second.
于是我决定写这个双语博客。我将其命名为“纺古行记”，以分享我在这一狭小却也独特的方向上，邂逅的与出土纺织品或传统纺织品有关的故事与信息。我将以第一人称从个人视角写作，但主要关注点还是会落在纺织品上。文中语种的出现顺序会以我写作时的第一语言为先。我会选我更方便写作的语言作为第一语言。比如，我接受的信息若以中文为主，我的文章就会以中文为先而英文在后。
If you were interested in this project, no matter in textiles, history, archaeology, culture, travelling stories or just my personal experience or reading bilingual articles, I warmly welcome you to follow my updates. You are also welcome to leave me comments, suggestions or questions, share it with your friends who might be interested in this topic or benefit from the information I share. Besides, if you like my articles and would be willing to support my work, I would extremely appreciate your possible donation or reward.
如果你对这个项目感兴趣，无论是有兴趣于纺织、历史、考古、文化、旅行，还是我的个人经历，或是双语阅读，我都热切欢迎你关注我的更新，也非常欢迎你留下评论、建议或提问，将其分享给你觉得可能感兴趣或从我分享的信息中受益的朋友。此外，如果你喜欢我的文章并愿意支持我的工作，也可以为我捐赠或打赏，我将不胜感激。
At last, many thanks are given to all the people who had heard about this idea and encouraged me to make it out. I will try my best not to stop exploring and writing. Hope you would like it.
最后，特别感谢听过我这个想法并支持我把它做出来的所有人。我会尽我所能，持续探索与写作，希望你们喜欢。
Cicely
Keep exploring and writing