#xuzhou

Giorio Casa, Xuzhou, China,

Catanian Design,

Furnishing: Guangzhou A3Home Co., Ltd. Furniture: Beijing Giorio Casa Home Design Co., ltd.

Students of a gymnastics school in Xuzhou, China, do toe-pressure training for 30 minutes in the afternoon. Photo by Wang Tiejun.

Sweat Makes Champions, Xuzhou, China, 2016 - photo by Wang Tiejun, 2017 World Press Photo Daily Life, second prize winner

“Students of a gymnastics school in Xuzhou, China, do toe-pressure training for 30 minutes in the afternoon.

“There are over 2,000 sports schools in China, which have produced 95 percent of the country’s Olympians. Training is intense, and in today’s China fewer parents are willing to let their children endure such grueling routines. Some schools have closed, while others are adjusting the way they work.” (Source)

在路上。

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.