From bamboo baskets at the village entrance to online celebrity orders: Li Juan's ten-year journey in weaving entrepreneurship

In the winter of 2013, Li Juan saw tourists marveling at clumsy bamboo baskets at a county market. Their exclamations of "What a rare craftsmanship!" piqued her interest. At the time, the village elders had spent their entire lives weaving bamboo products, but they only knew how to sell them to buyers, earning a maximum of five yuan for a sturdy basket. She tried taking photos of her mother's rattan storage baskets and posting them on WeChat Moments. Unexpectedly, she sold over twenty of them in just three days.

The initial challenges of her business were more irritating than the burrs on the bamboo strips. Customers complained that the edges of her bamboo baskets were rubbing against their hands, so she took samples to an experienced craftsman and learned how to repeatedly sand the edges with fine sandpaper and then apply a layer of beeswax for a smooth finish. The most challenging part came in the summer of 2017, when a heavy rainstorm caused mold in the rattan warehouse, resulting in losses of nearly 30,000 yuan. "That night, I cried while hugging the moldy rattan. My mother said, 'If it's broken, tear it apart, and then start again.' These words became my confidence later on."

A turning point came in 2019. Li Juan's video of the "complete bamboo strip splitting process" on a short video platform unexpectedly went viral. In the video, her fingertips flicked, transforming a single bamboo into thirty hair-thin strips in just three minutes. The video has been viewed over 5 million times. Orders poured in from all over the country, and she spearheaded the establishment of a cooperative, which has created jobs for 28 women in the village, 12 of whom have escaped poverty.

Today, Li Juan still maintains her daily habit of weaving bamboo for two hours. Hanging on the wall of her studio are two of her most treasured items: the delivery slip from her first order and a photo of her sisters in the cooperative. "Some say I've turned an old craft into a new business, but I'm actually just letting more people know that the little tune my grandmother hummed while weaving bamboo baskets can also sing of a better life." The setting sun shone through the window lattice, casting tiny specks of light on the frame of the bamboo basket she was weaving, like a handful of golden hope.