From sport to art, the ancient craft of hand ball re-emerges

Hand ball, a weaving craft originating about 400 years ago, has been recently listed as an intangible cultural heritage in Songjiang District.

Developing from the Chinese football in the Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907), the hand ball was also an ancient sport once popular among the aristocratic families. It became more common after the mass production of cotton thread entered people's lives.

As time went by, the sport gradually lost its recreational function, while its artistic value began to emerge, becoming a handicraft that features geometric beauty between our fingertips.

Threads in various colors are interlaced, twisted and twined to form a cotton sphere of different patterns.

It requires a pair of nimble hands and great patience. A plain ball stuffed with cotton is made first, and the sphere is then divided into several segments with silk threads, which will be filled in and woven with various motifs in different colors.

"It looks like a kaleidoscope with infinite possibilities," said Li Xin, the heir to this heritage. But her full-time job is a department director of NorthGlass, a glass manufacturer based in Songjiang.

In 2008 she met Ma Shi, the descendant of this handicraft, whose family has been making the ball since the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). Fascinated by the skill, she became an apprentice and learned from Ma for more than 10 years.

"Night Safari in Guangfulin Relics Park" is one of Li's major work. She drew the inspiration from the park's cultural exhibition center that was constructed under Fulin Lake with its roof "floating" above the water surface, and extracted the architecture's lines and silhouette as the abstract patterns for the woven ball.

The work breaks the rhythm between the basic forms and the plane, which makes the motifs more three-dimensional, better bringing out the architectural beauty through the geometric art and dynamic color matching.

The hand ball needs to be passed on. Li and her student Zhang Ying set up a hand ball team in 2018, and it has expanded to 22 members today.

"It requires time and skills. I hope more young people can get involved," Li said.