Rich symbols of ethnic culture

The ongoing exhibition Attachment to the Hometown presents around 150 baby carriers of different ethnic groups. [Photo provided to China Daily]

As many ethnic tribes do not have a written language, they often use Han characters in their designs. As a result, some baby carriers feature Han characters that convey auspicious and encouraging messages.

Mothers also attach tassels, perfumed medicine bags and shiny materials to their baby carriers to scare away evil spirits and demons.

The carriers at the exhibition are from a donation of 1,770 baby carriers made to NAMOC.

The donation was made by Ada Tang Lee Wai-ching, vice-chairman of the Fu Hui Education Foundation, a charity based in Canada and Hong Kong. She learned of this collection of baby carriers through Lee Mei-yin, a collector of ethnic Chinese costumes and a researcher at the Dunhuang Academy China.

In 2012, Lee met an American collector named Mark Clayton in Los Angeles, where she gave a lecture on Miao embroidery.

She was taken to Clayton's storage facility where she was astonished to see thousands of pieces of ethnic Chinese embroidery which he had collected.

She says because of the rising costs of storage and preservation, Clayton then wanted to donate 5,000 baby carriers to museums in the United States so that more people could appreciate the beauty of Chinese embroidery, but was turned down by such institutions.