|
A Tailor's Tale RETURN TO PREVIOUS PAGE From the moment I saw the tailor make a tiny Qipao for "Willa", my daughter’s favourite soft friend, I knew that others might be interested in having authentic Chinese clothing for their children’s toy friends. Then, when we decided to try and raise funds for a baby in the Jinzhou Social Welfare Institute needing cleft palate surgery, I thought these outfits might just be a great fundraiser. So, I went to the tailor, Ai Jun, and asked her if she could sew a few dozen of the outfits and have them ready in a month. I explained why I wanted them. She agreed to sew them, and gave me a great deal on the cost of labour. I went to buy some fabric, found a few patterns I liked, and brought it back to her. I asked her to sew as many as she could with this material. When I went back two weeks later, she had made many more than the material would have allowed. I asked her how this happened and she explained that many of the other tailors in her area heard that she was sewing doll clothes for a foreigner to help raise money for a child in the orphanage in Jinzhou. They were so touched by this that they donated their scraps to her. She sewed these scraps into Qipaos for me. Some of them were actually patchwork since the scraps were not big enough to sew a whole dress. When I saw them, it warmed my heart. All of the doll clothes are wonderful, but these patchwork Qipaos were truly sewn with love and caring, carried to Beijing with a warm heart, traveled to Canada with newly formed families bursting with love of their own, to warm a child’s soft friend, and in so doing, help a toddler get his surgery and his smile. Acts of kindness on both sides of the world made this possible. And it all began with a single stich. - Joan Mayer, Canadian, while living & working in Jinzhou China with her daughter Billijo  The tailor's sign - JinLing is the name of the store/building that the tailor's are in on the second floor. Her name is Ai Jun. Zhi Yi means tailor.  The tailor with Billijo, Willa the rabbit, her bitty baby, and Zhang Ye (foster daughter) with her bear  The tailor with Billijo, Willa the rabbit and the baby doll. RETURN TO PREVIOUS PAGE |
