A tradition worth dyeing for

"I've never felt that the traditional and the modern are opposed. What is modern today will someday become a part of tradition," Chou says.

Yang Shenghua was among those who signed up for the courses at the cooperative, which she says allowed her to once again experience the joy of making cloth.

"The craft was passed on from my grandmother to my mother, and then to me. It used to be something that I was told to do because my mother and her mother did it, and I didn't want to be useless," she says. "Now it is something I like doing, because it is part of our tradition and culture.