The future of Ghanaian traditional cloths?

Ntonso and Bonwire were the two craft villages I have visited, where the famous Ashanti kente cloths were made and dyed by hand. Both of the villages looked poor and deprived. As soon as I arrived, a group of children, with dust on their faces and cloths, screamed and ran to grab my hands. Adults tried to show their best hospitality to make friend with me, so that the chances for them to sell their kente might increase. In Ntonso, the pots that were used to boil the dye for kente were smoked into coaly dark. A chicken with only one claw stumbled around the fields, intensifying the grey and depressing environment. It appeared to me that making cloth barely enhanced the living standard of these craft villagers.














I could connect what I have seen with two factors, although I am not quite sure if they are the causations of the phenomena. Firstly, all the kente I have seen were handmade. A several-meter-long strip that is made on a webbing loom could make a master kente maker spend several hours on it. No wonder that a traditional Ghanaian kente shirt could cost more than fifty Ghana Cedi. Since this price is less affordable for the local Ghanaians, the kente sellers may anticipate foreign buyers (assuming Ghanaians cannot get the same item in a much cheaper price than the Whites). Nevertheless, I doubt if most of the westerners would spend much on buying a kente cloth that they may not wear it frequently in their home countries.

Another factor, the advent of Chinese people has probably resulted in a major impact on the Ghanaian textile industry in general. Chinese traders had gained large amount of influence in retailing of textiles in Ghana. Not only did they sell cheap Chinese cloths, they also imitated the Ghanaian wax print. On August 30, 2006, BBC reported that Chinese companies copied the designs of Ghanaian textiles, and sold them with cheaper prices in the Ghanaian market. Many Ghanaians still hold the idea that things from other countries are better than from theirs. The sudden competitions from Chinese made the demand for locally produced textiles fall by between 50 to 75 per cent.














It is worthy of worrying that the tradition and beauty of hand-made textiles become less desired by people. This is not just happening in Ghana, but in the entire world. Capitalization allows mass production in order to ensure lower prices of products. A good thing of it is that the people in the developing countries may afford more items and increase the quality of lives. However, how many traditional skills of making and designing cloths by hands are threatened to extinct, owning to the fact that the people in craft villages cannot stuff their stomachs? I think it is the Ghanaian people who can decide whether or not they should speed up their development at the cost of losing part of their culture.