Everyday wear like casual shirts, T-shirts, and jackets, embroidered (刺绣) with traditional patterns from the Yi ethnic group, staged a striking show at recent New York Fashion Week, which took place on September 4th. Chinese designer Wang Ta’s new youth collection, decorated with Yi embroidery, a Chinese intangible (无形的) cultural heritage, was a definite hit on the last night of the fashion week.

The audience was amazed by both the beautiful and mostly hand-embroidered colorful patterns and the perfect balance of modern and traditional elements. Leah Coulter, a student at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, who dressed the models for the show, said the collection was a mix of old and new and loved all the patterns and embroidery, which aroused her interest in the unique handicraft dating back thousands of years. “I need to learn more about its history, " Coulter said.

It’s not something new in the fashion world to involve China’s intangible cultural heritages as elements of design, Wang said, but it’s not easy to make them into true fashion. Intangible cultural heritages should not always be displayed in museums or only appear on souvenirs. I hope to break the stereotype through using the Yi embroidery and make them everyday, fashionable items, " Wang told the media after the show. "I think fashion is the best way to introduce culture. "

Wang’s design ideas can be traced back to both her global experience as a fashion designer in Japan, the UK and China, and her unique educational background. Before receiving her second degree in fashion from Japan’s top fashion institute Tokyo Mode Gakuen, she majored in history at ECNU（East China Normal University）in Shanghai. In order to create her collection, Wang and her team went to Chuxiong Yi Autonomous Prefecture (自治州) in southwest China’s Yunnan Province and deeply studied the culture and history of Yi’s craftsmanship to gain insight into the essence, delicacy and symbolism of Yi embroidery. But Wang’s employing the patterns, colors and techniques of Yi embroidery in her contemporary fashion designs is not a simple imitation. The combination of modern and traditional parts can’t be too striking for it to be widely accepted as everyday wear, Wang said, adding that her goal is for people, regardless of gender, color or nationality, to like her designs.

While flat bread has a history that dates back to ancient Egypt, real pizza—pizza with tomato sauce—was invented in Naples, Italy. Legend holds that pizza margherita—filled with tomato, cheese, and basil, in the red white and green of Italy’s flag—was first created by Naples’ Pizzeria Brandi to honor Queen Margherita of Italy during an 1886 visit.

Today, of course, there are all kinds of pizza shapes, sizes and flavors around the world, but the original Neapolitan pizza is round, with a soft, thin center and thinker, crunchier sides. You should be able to fold it in four and eat it like a crepe. And that's the delicious treat that's now up for protection as an irreplaceable piece of global human heritage: This year, Italy is putting "the art of the Neopolitan pizza maker" on the list of candidates to become treasures of world heritage recognized by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization

Universally recognizable, "pizza" happens to to the Italian language's best-known word, but that doesn't mean it's a shoo-in. "UNESCO has never listed a cultural tradition linked to food production," Peirluigi Petrillo, who prepared the documents to be discussed at UNESCO, told The Local.

The European Union included pizza in its official list of “guaranteed traditional specialities” in 2016. The list specifies that any pizza called “Neapolitan” must be no more than 35 cm wide, with crust of up to 2 cm high, topped with canned tomatoes, cheese from Naples, Campania region, oil and basil. The pizza must be cooked in a wooden oven, and be elastic and soft.

Italy also says that it has more UNESCO-recognized cultural treasures than any other country. The final decision on whether pizza-making makes one more will be announced in 2022, after discussion with all 193 UN member-states.

By drawing patterns on the surface of a cup of tea, chabaixi, an ancient Chinese tea trick displayed in a recent TV drama, has gone viral for its apparent similarity with modern latte art (咖啡拉花艺术). However, ten years ago, this distinctive technique was close to disappearing completely. Zhang Zhifeng, a practitioner of chabaixi, found scenes of chabaixi in the drama aroused great interest among ordinary people.

Chabaixi can create endless patterns such as bamboos and mountains or even calligraphy. There are over a dozen steps, from grinding (碾碎) tea for fine powder, to pouring boiled water, stirring the mixture for thick froth, and finally drawing the patterns. It is different from making latte because people use clear water as the object to put into the cup instead of milk. But when the water touches the surface of whipped (搅打起泡沫的) tea, it turns into a white color and disappears in 20 minutes. The process before the drawing is known as the tea-making technique, diancha. The quality of diancha is crucial to whether patterns can be successfully produced later.

“Chabaixi is one of the countless forms of tea-making techniques in China. The importance of chabaixi is not only that this technique is unique in the world, but also it gives us a window into people’s lifestyle in the Song Dynasty, a period of time when leisure activities in some ways resemble what we have now,” Zhang said.

Before chabaixi was discovered by TV audiences, the technique was listed as part of China’s Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2017, after it was recovered by Zhang Zhifeng. He started researching the origins of chabaixi in the 1980s and brought the technique back in 2009 after decades of trials and practice. Zhang spent nearly 30 years studying and researching the origins and making of tea, but for him it was all worthwhile.

“This technique is key to the tea culture of the Song Dynasty, and it would be a shame to let it fade. This technique must be passed on to the next generations so they can understand its history,” Zhang said.