A Pair of Straw Sandals: Tracing the Long March memory in Yudu

A few strands of straw are twisted, woven, and bound together. Little by little, they take the shape of a pair of sandals. Simple as they are, these straw sandals carry a history that stretches back more than 90 years.

These sandals are closely associated with the Red Army soldiers who gathered there before embarking on the Long March. 

Yudu County in Southeastern China's Jiangxi Province was one of the important gathering and departure points of the Central Red Army. In 1934, tens of thousands of people from the county joined the Red Army. 

Almost every family in Yudu has one that joined the Red Army.

For those who made and offered them, the sandals were more than just footwear. They were a simple but practical way of supporting soldiers embarking on a journey with an uncertain destination.

"These are the straw sandals the Red Army wore," said Xiao Nandou, an 82-year-old local straw-sandal weaver who still knows how to make them. "At that time, many of them didn't even have shoes. They had to walk barefoot. It was really tough."

For generations, straw sandals were handmade in rural communities across southern China. But in Yudu, they came to embody a particular chapter in the region's history.

A farewell without knowing when they would return

That memory is still being retold through performances today.

Li Fang, who played Fu Sao in the stage production "The First Crossing of the Long March", portrays a woman who sends her two sons to join the army.

"I played Fu Sao in the performance. She had a strong sense of duty to her country and family, so she sent her two sons to join the army," Li said.

In the performance, Fu Sao's sons never return home.

For Li, the Long March story is also personal. She learned from her mother that her own grandfather, who was a Red Army soldier, never returned.

"When I think about the hardships the Red Army went through and the lives they sacrificed for the life we have today, I feel we should always remember them and be grateful for what they did," she said.

The stories of individual families give the history of the Long March a deeply human dimension: one measured not only in miles traveled, but also in the sacrifices made by those who stayed behind.

A pair of sandals that was hardly ever worn

At the Yudu History Museum of the Central Red Army's Departure for the Long March, another story lives on through a simple pair of straw sandals.

Museum guide Zhong Xueyan said the sandals were woven by Xie Zhijian's fiancée before he set out on the Long March.

"She stayed up all night weaving them for him before he set out on the Long March and handed them to him as he left," Zhong said.

Xie carried the sandals with him throughout the journey. But he treasured them so deeply that he could hardly bring himself to wear them.

In the end, he wore them only twice.

The story shows how an ordinary object can become a vessel for memory, carrying the care of the person who made it, the uncertainty of departure and the hopes of those left waiting at home.

"Every generation has its own Long March"

In Yudu, remembering the Long March is not only about reflecting on history. For people living here today, the idea of a "Long March" also resonates with the challenges of building a better life.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has said, "Every generation has its own Long March."

During a visit to Yudu in 2019, Xi visited Tantou Village and learned about local development and the lives of villagers. Sun recalled that Xi asked about his son's work and income, as well as the education of his grandchildren.

"My son told him that children now have good access to education, which is free of charge. They have lunch at school, with three dishes and soup," Sun said.

The transformation is also reflected in the village’s economy.

Ganzhou began promoting the development of selenium-rich agricultural products following geological surveys in 2018. In Tantou Village, collective economic income surged from less than 80,000 yuan (about $12,000) in 2018 to more than 3.55 million yuan (about $530,000) in 2025, according to the Ganzhou Municipal Government.

Today, selenium-enriched agricultural products, including rice, are being sold in markets ranging from Hong Kong and Macao to Central Europe.

"Our products are very popular," Sun said.

The fields of Tantou Village therefore offer a different image of the "Long March": one defined not by battlefields and arduous mountain trails, but by agricultural development, new livelihoods and efforts to improve people's lives.

The new journey in Yudu

The road has changed. Straw sandals are no longer everyday footwear, and the number of people who remember the Long March firsthand is dwindling.

But those sandals still have stories to tell.

They evoke the soldiers who left Yudu more than nine decades ago, the families who bid them farewell, and the ordinary people who supported them with whatever they could offer.

They also link that history to the lives of people in Yudu today, people who are tending their fields, developing local industries and forging new paths for their communities.

As Xi said during his visit to Yudu, remembering the revolutionary past also means remembering the people who lived through it.

For Yudu, the Long March is therefore not simply a chapter frozen in history. Its memory endures in a pair of handmade sandals, in stories passed from one generation to the next, and in a new journey taking shape in the fields.