What do you give a child who is leaving home?
She is over seventy. She lives in Xuzhou. Her grandson is leaving to study in another city, and she worries. The night before, she sews a small silk pouch. Inside, she puts mugwort, cloves, camphor. Then she closes the stitches.
This is a xiangbao (香包) - a "fragrant treasure."
Somewhere in Russia, another grandmother sews a small Orthodox amulet into the lining of a coat. Same old tradition. Same wish for happiness and safety. Same hands.
Both are fragrant, touching gifts. Made by hand.
In China, traditionally, xiangbao are given to children on the Dragon Boat Festival (Duanwu). People hang them in cars, put them in wardrobes. It was believed that the wonderful scents drive away illness and bad things.
But how can a scent protect?
In a Russian banya, people burned juniper. In a Chinese house, people hung mugwort by the door. It was believed that fragrance creates a border: "Here it is clean. Here it is safe. Here you are among your own. Illness and misfortune are not welcome here."
But the most important thing - then and now - is not belief in magic.
The most important thing is that a mother, a grandmother, or an older sister sewed her personal wish into every stitch.
To give a xiangbao to someone else is to say: "Take care of yourself. Come back home. I remember you. I will not forget you."
