The Hemp and the Beeswax: A Hmong Cinderella, Traditional Hmong Folktale - Paperback

by Ia Moua Yang (Author)

Ia Moua Yang, Hmong textile artist, recounts Cinderella, one of her favorite stories. Unlike the Cinderella story we know from Europe, in the Hmong story the young couple is united in the hemp cloth with its indigo pattern made by using beeswax to resist the dye to create a pattern.

Author Biography

Ia Moua Yang has kept the textile traditions alive here in the United States. She died suddenly in 2011. One of her favorite stories was the Hmong Cinderella Story which explains the significance of the Indigo batik cloth that is one of the major textile traditions in the Hmong culture. When I began working with Ia in Providence, Rhode Island more than 25 years ago, we gathered in her home along with extended family. They told me the Cinderella Story at this time. As they told the story in Hmong, Ia translated it into English; the group rolled in laughter at several points in the story. I could tell how much they enjoyed Cinderella. Unlike the Cinderella story we know, in the Hmong story the young couple are united in the hemp cloth with its indigo pattern formed by using beeswax to resist the dye so a design is created. As a tribute to Ia Moua Yang and her love of the Hmong culture, we are making a book of this folktale and basing the illustrations on a style that appears in Hmong story clothes. We have Cinderella in Hmong, English and Lao because the Hmong culture weaves into each of these cultures, and we wish to make this story available to as many people as possible. (Carolyn Shapiro who produced the book.)