My daughter asked, "These shoes are too small to wear, why put them away?" I said, "Save them for your daughter to wear." She was a bit puzzled, those beautiful looking new leather shoes and sneakers were thrown away, why these ugly cloth shoes were kept. I touched it: these cloth shoes were made by Grandma's hands, now Grandma's energy and eyesight can no longer make shoes, and in the future, perhaps we will not see this kind of cloth shoes.
"Then when you are a grandmother, do not just do it yourself."
"But I don't know how to do it." I was a little ashamed, "Most people my age don't know how to make cloth shoes anymore."
1
Cloth shoes, in the memories of many post-70s and post-80s rural children, there should be a very deep impression, this is the only shoes of our childhood and adolescence, except water shoes.
When I was young, everyone in the countryside wore cloth shoes, and everyone in the women's community made cloth shoes. After the fall harvest, the work in the field was relatively easy, and the housewives made preparations for making shoes. The process of making cloth shoes is actually quite complicated, first of all, you have to cut a good shoe pattern, usually with a piece of newspaper, according to the length and width of each person's foot to cut a template, the adult shoe pattern is basically unchanged, you can always save it, and take it out every year to use, while the child's foot grows year after year, you have to change the shoe pattern every year. My mom's biggest headache was cutting shoe samples. Whether or not the shoe samples were well cut would, to a certain extent, determine whether or not the shoes would look good after they were made. When my grandmother was alive, it was my grandmother who cut the shoe samples for us, and my mom kept the samples in a thick book for safekeeping.
The next step was to make the soles of the shoes. The soles of the cloth shoes were made of layers of white cloth dipped in rice paste on the shoe samples, and these white cloths were mostly from the worn-out shirts or fall clothes and pants. The thread used to make the soles of the shoes was hemp thread. Every family would grow some ramie, peel off the skin, scrape it clean with a tile, and then the thread would be dried or sun-dried. In the middle of a busy day, my mother would bring a bowl of water and knead a piece of the skin on her thigh into small strands of white twine. The twine was used to make the soles of the shoes, which were strong and wear-resistant. The women came out with their soles in their hands and talked about their soles in twos and threes, and they had a lot of fun.
The black corduroy is used as the upper, the white linen as the inner, and the rice paste is used to stick it together. When all the scattered parts are done, it is left to hang the shoes, i.e., to sew the upper and sole together with twine. When completely done well, a pair of white bottom and black side of the cloth shoes will be molded.
Every winter, when it was snowy outside, we played around on the firebox, fathers could brag or play cards, and mothers always sat on the firebox, nabbing the soles and cutting the shoe samples, as if there were never-ending shoes to be made. In one winter, the family had to make shoes for all seasons, single shoes for spring and fall, and cotton shoes for the cold winter months. The weather is a little bit better, there is always endless work in the field, no time to make shoes.
In the past, we were so poor that we didn't always wear new clothes on New Year's Day, but our shoes were always new. Mom was often still making shoes on the night of the New Year's Eve. On the first day of the New Year, the usual mud monkeys, wearing new cloth shoes, went around to pay homage to the New Year.
2
In the traditional culture, when an old man dies, he has to wear new cloth shoes. When a new person gets married, the mother-in-law's family makes two pairs of new shoes for her son-in-law and brings them to the groom's house along with the dowry, which is called "He Lang Shoes". Do "He Lang shoes" is very delicate, the sole of the white cloth can not use old clothes as material, must use the new indeed cloth, to ensure that the sole out of the snow white snow white; upper black corduroy quality to be better, the color should be deep and bright. There are also requirements for the shoe maker: the shoe maker must be good at his craft, but also have a harmonious family and two children. The groom's family's seven aunts and eight aunts will come to see the "He Lang Shoes" and compare their skills. The women who can make "He Lang Shoes" will be very famous in all the villages and townships.
When a new baby is born, grandma's family will send two pairs of soft cloth shoes as a congratulatory gift when they come to celebrate the full moon. The family would also make baby shoes to show how much they valued the child.
Nowadays, with the new custom and new style, there is no one to make "He Lang Shoes" anymore, even the ordinary cloth shoes are not made. Everyone is wearing leather shoes and sneakers, and the cloth shoes are out of our lives without us realizing it. My mom's shoe pattern books and shoe soling tools disappeared, as if they had vanished without a trace. I haven't worn my mom's handmade cloth shoes for more than ten years.
Back in my hometown, there was no more ramie fluttering in the vegetable garden, and the aunts and sisters-in-law who used to make shoe soles were now playing music and dancing in the square at the village office, and everything was moving forward at a fast pace. Our generation has the memory of cloth shoes, but not the skills to make them. By the next generation, perhaps they won't even know what cloth shoes are.