Health food, chocolate, tobacco, and wine are normally chosen as
gifts for relatives and friends during the Spring Festival (Chinese
lunar New Year). This year, embroidered portraits, instead, become
popular in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, as people are pleased to
receive fine pieces of embroidery with their own images on them.
Suzhou embroidery leads Chinese embroidery with its lifelike and
delicate work. Just based on one's picture, embroidery artists can
produce a vivid likeness of the person merely with needle and
string. It is astonishing that even the person's skin color, facial
expression, and wrinkles can be presented clearly in the embroidery
work.
Besides that, many people like to have embroidered portraits
made of their relatives and friends, or of themselves, while crazy
fans are keen on collecting the embroidered portraits of pop stars.
In Suzhou, an embroidered portrait of Sang-woo Kwon, a Korean movie
star, is being produced at the request of about 70 fans, who will
present it to Sang-woo Kwon as a New Year gift.
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(Chinanews.cn January 31, 2007)
