Uygur embroiderer keeps Hami heritage alive by embracing modern trends

URUMQI - When Kader Rahman, a member of the Uygur ethnic group, sits down to transform silken strands of colored thread into beautiful flowers, he enters a true state of flow.

"These are my favorite moments of the day. Embroidery makes all my troubles melt away, and I am oblivious to everything going on around me," Kader, 46, said in his studio in Qiaomaizhuangzi village, Hami, in northwestern China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.

When he is sewing, it is hard to imagine his agile hands once tended crops in his former life as a farmer. Today, he is a different type of guardian as he helps to preserve Xinjiang's only State-protected intangible cultural heritage - the art of Hami embroidery.