Changzhou tiger-head shoes making skills, a traditional skills project in the third batch of representative projects of Changzhou's municipal intangible cultural heritage. Changzhou tiger-head shoes have a history of thousands of years, and are named after the tiger-head shape of the toe. In the Eastern Han Dynasty, Ying Shao wrote in "Customs and Meanings of Sacrifice": "The tiger is a yang object, the leader of all beasts. It can fight and defeat sharp beasts, and eat ghosts and demons." These characteristics of the tiger greatly cater to people's good wishes of borrowing objects to pray for blessings, and naturally become an object of people's worship. Women in many areas such as Zhonglou, Liyang, and Tianning still inherit the making skills and customs of tiger-head shoes for hobbies, business, or as charitable donations. Making a pair of authentic tiger-head shoes requires many relatively complicated processes such as cutting samples, gluing samples, sewing soles, making toes, uppers, edging, putting on lasts, and trimming. The tiger head alone requires embroidery, picking flowers, beating seeds, and other needlework. The colors of the upper are mainly red and yellow. The tiger's mouth, eyebrows, nose, eyes, etc. are often outlined with thick lines to exaggerate the tiger's might. When sewing, rabbit hair is often used to trim the shoe mouth, tiger ears, tiger eyes, etc., with red, yellow, and white mixed, and the outline is clear. When a child wears tiger-head shoes, the rabbit hair flutters in the wind, and the tiger head also has a sense of movement. The soles of tiger-head shoes are large, and nine diamond-shaped broken flowers are inserted into the space. The nine broken flowers are called nine rounds, which means "nine children and ten successes". There are also various flower-shaped patterns such as Ruyi and clever sewn on the side of the upper. It is generally believed that the tiger is the king of beasts. Wearing tiger-head shoes can ward off evil, ensure safety, and protect children's healthy growth. Therefore, people like to give tiger-head shoes to the young lady who is about to get married as a dowry. Usually, red dates, longan, longan and other auspicious objects are stuffed into the finished tiger-head shoes, so that parents can put tiger-head shoes on their children after the birth of their children in the future to ward off evil, ensure safety, and protect their children's healthy growth. The deeper meaning is that they hope their children can grow up strong like tigers, and it also carries the parents' hope that their children will be self-reliant, so tiger-head shoes have more meanings than other mascots. When giving away tiger-head shoes, it is forbidden to give them in odd numbers, that is, you can only give 2, 4, 6 pairs, etc., but not 3, 5, 7 pairs, etc. In the early days, the sewing of tiger-head shoes was mainly based on beautiful wearing, warmth and practicality, and ordinary girls and women were good at sewing. After a long period of inheritance, this production technique has never been discontinued in Changzhou. Today, the main inheritors of Zhonglou District are Yu Xiuqin, He Wenjuan, Pan Sanyuan, Qian Pingjuan, etc. Their products are well-known far and wide, and local citizens and foreign friends come to order them in an endless stream. Jiang Liuya, the inheritor of the tiger-head shoe making technique in Tianmu Lake Town, Liyang City, is now 88 years old. His products are not only displayed in large-scale local cultural activities, but also often appear in street stalls. A tiger-head shoe workshop was set up in Xieqiaoxiang Community, Tianning Subdistrict. Elder Jiang Liuqin, who is skilled in making tiger-head shoes, accepted 6 apprentices and passed on the production skills for free. (No pictures yet, welcome to provide.) (No pictures yet, welcome to provide.)