Ancient handicraft bucks gender norms

"No one had a Li brocade business in the neighborhood," Fu recalls.

"Since I was very attached to the art, I decided to return to my hometown and start a business out of it."

He then went door to door, talking to local households about his business plans, and managed to get more than 70 local Li brocade practitioners on board and founded a cooperative.

After getting the ball rolling, Fu returned to Dongfang and dived headfirst into the revival of the Li brocade trade upon graduating in 2019.

In the following two years, Fu expanded the business, securing orders worth hundreds of thousands of yuan from the Hainan market. He then distributed the work back to the cooperative's weavers, establishing a reliable income stream for them and fostering the cooperative's growth.