It is estimated that there are 80, 000 embroidery craftswomen and artists in Suzhou, a city famous for silk and silk embroidery, east China's Jiangsu Province. Most of them are from Zhenhu, a small town where almost every woman can do hand embroidery work. Women there learned how to embroider when they were little girls, 7 and 8 years old. Since almost every woman can embroider well, young girls have a very good environment to learn and can learn the embroidery skills quickly. They first watch their mothers or grandmothers embroider, and after some time their mothers or grandmothers would teach them how to embroider by showing step by step. They would try some very simple images at the beginning, for instance flowers that can be completed in one day. Though skills and techniques can be learned from mothers and grandmothers, young girls normally need to spend 2 to 3 years on embroidering average images before they can embroider animals and portraits well.