Crane Qing silversmith, knock out the happy life "echo"

Workers Daily-Zhonggong Network reporter Zhao Lihao

At the foot of Phoenix Mountain, next to the Black Dragon Pond, a archway stands in front of Xinhua Village in Heqing County, Yunnan Province, and the plaque reads "China's First Silver Ware Village", and the pillars, beams, buckets, cornices, etc. of the archway are decorated with handmade silver carvings, which are exquisite.

In the silverware industry, there is a saying, "China's silverware looks at Yunnan, and Yunnan silverware looks at Xinhua". According to the "Chronicle of Heqing County", since the beginning of the Nanzhao period of the Tang Dynasty, some people in Xinhua Village have been engaged in gold, silver and bronze processing, which has been more than a thousand years.

With the handicrafts passed down from generation to generation and the organized professional training in the local area in recent years, "Heqing Silversmith" has increasingly become a bright business card to drive the employment of the labor force.

The "little furnace maker" is eclectic

"Ding-ding, ding-ding..."Walking along the bluestone slab road to the village, a small hammer sound came out from inside a green-tiled white wall. Inch Guangwei is doing the finishing work of the silver pot in the workshop, which is a custom silver pot that a Shanghai customer asked him to customize. Inch Guangwei does not need to see the real thing, just look at the photo can be manually "reproduced".

Deeply influenced by the craftsmanship of his father since childhood, at the age of 15, he was able to independently make simple utensils such as cups, pots and bowls. In order to earn money to supplement his family, in 1994, he took a bellows, took a hammer and tongs, and went to Tibet to work.

At that time, monasteries in Tibetan areas needed a large number of gold, silver and copper products, and the silversmiths in Xinhua Village were extremely sought-after. In order to make a living, many craftsmen and Cun Guangwei left their hometowns and traveled all over Tibet, Gansu, Hunan, Guizhou and other places. They are called "little furnace makers".

Heqing silversmiths found that many ethnic minority areas have a tradition of making silver jewelry, which is full of national characteristics. They combine the craftsmanship handed down from their ancestors with the craftsmanship learned by traveling south and north to create a more practical and beautiful silverware.

After spending nearly 20 years in Tibet, Li Wenbin systematically mastered the processes of smelting, forging, pounding, engraving, gilding, and filigree. He also invented convection welding techniques, which used no solder aid and preheated the pot body at high temperatures, so that the metal at the interface convected with each other to fuse into a whole.

In 2008, Henan Zhengzhou Mengxiang Sterling Silver Jewelry Co., Ltd. found Li Wenbin and asked him to overcome the filigree welding technology and weld the silver wire to the bowl. This is a national gift order, and the process is extremely difficult. Li Wenbin tried to challenge the new technology, worked overtime and repeated experiments, and completed the task 15 days ahead of schedule.

"Every family has craftsmanship, every family has a factory"

Li Wenbin knew that it was not easy to go out to learn art, and decided to open a workshop to let the villagers earn money while learning art at the doorstep of their homes.

Inside the Wenbin workshop, villager Li Xingping is carefully engraving on the silverware. Under the guidance of Li Wenbin, Li Xingping started from the basic work and the engraving skills improved by leaps and bounds. Slowly, he took silver making as a pleasure, earning 40,000 yuan a year.

"It is better to teach people to fish than to teach people to fish." After the establishment of the workshop, many people in the village went to study, and Li Wenbin focused on poor households, disabled people, orphans and other groups. According to rough statistics, he directly led 120 apprentices and more than 800 stepped apprentices.

Chen Dongping of Heqing County Labor and Employment Service Bureau introduced that Heqing County has identified a number of training institutions and established a multi-type training base to improve the quality of training through door-to-door training and school-enterprise joint training.

"Through base cultivation, association construction, arts and crafts master training and declaration and protection of intangible cultural heritage projects, we have created a 'Heqing Silversmith' labor service brand that integrates labor-intensive and traditional handicrafts, and have embarked on a new path of market-oriented operation, integrated service and large-scale output of labor service brands." Zhang Silin, director of the Heqing County Human Resources and Social Security Bureau, introduced.

At present, heqing county has a total of more than 1,500 processing households engaged in silver handicraft processing, driving more than 9,000 people to work, silverware industry annual sales of 2.6 billion yuan, Xinhua Village has formed a "front shop and back fang" "one household one art" production and sales mode and "household has craftsmanship, every family has a factory" production pattern.

Branding helps expand employment

As the fifth generation of the family's silverware production, Cun Yu Jianzi inherited his father's business and promoted the quality and efficiency of the silverware process with the enterprise management operation mode. He formulated a standardized salary system and price system, and strictly controlled the quality.

The company also created the "Inch Silversmith" brand. "After doing a good job of the brand, it can increase sales, increase employment, and form a virtuous development cycle." Cun Yujian said that the establishment of a brand can also promote process improvement and innovation, make characteristics, and maintain the vitality of handicrafts.

After learning lathe processing skills in Zhengzhou, Li Wenbin introduced the machine into silverware production, improving production efficiency.

However, Li Wenbin believes that the machine can only replace 20% of the process, and more need to be completed by the flexible skills of the silversmith. "Traditional handicrafts have the precipitation of intangible cultural heritage, the deep and shallow hammer marks on silverware with human breathing, and the ideas that craftsmen want to express. Each piece is unique. ”

In the face of the impact of industrialization, Li Wenbin believes that silversmiths should have a sense of crisis, but also adhere to manual skills, master a certain process, and then conquer other processes, constantly surpass themselves, and do more and more refined.