Text / Pan Wei
In 2000, I opened a column in the supplement of a local newspaper, titled "A Glimpse of the Folk", every picture and article was documentary, very popular, and the following year, the column was rated as "Excellent Column of National Newspaper Supplement" and opened 379 issues. After 20 years, there are still readers who keep newspaper clippings, and the period is not missed. Since then, I have focused on the folk, the creation of the bottom of society, or the skills of making a living, food, clothing, shelter and transportation, involving all aspects of people's livelihood.
Whenever I have free time, I will carry a camera and go to the county seat to "sweep the street" and go down to the township to "sweep the polder". At the beginning of the 21st century, the prosperous world was peaceful, and the people had spare money from the city. At that time, the streets and towns in various places, the mountains of goods, the columns of banners, various kinds of doors, hundreds of crafts, all kinds of people, etc., bustling and bustling, medical astrology, also came and went. Even if you shoot randomly on the street, you will gain. At that time, I was stingy with film, the shooting scene was slightly monotonous, and the field of involvement was slightly narrower, which is now regretted.
Journalists' habits, shoot and ask questions, three words and two words, long when there are words, short if there is no words. Film and digital, intermittent, momentary twenty loads, accumulated over time, intentionally or unintentionally, the images of hundreds of craftsmanship and people's livelihood accumulate into a grand view.
Hundreds of craftsmanship, or carry forward, listed in the "intangible cultural heritage", famous in the world; or lack of successors, reduced to the sunset industry, will be eliminated. However, there are high and low skills, and there is no noble karma. In the old days, the "three hundred and sixty lines" should be shadowed one by one and passed on for them. The remnants of material civilization have been lived for generations.
Looking for workshops, looking for old shops, visiting craftsmen, chasing "walking ghosts": "castrated pig guy" Ouyang, cotton smith Lao Qin, paste "lion head" Pan Uncle, carved tombstones of Lao Chen, nailed wooden sandals of Lao Wu, curium porcelain bowl Master Tian, "Weixing" copper shop of Lao Su, cormorant "bite" fish cow brother ... Leave a phone, add WeChat, often contact, make friends. This is the other side of the human world, the "Divine Bird" title test surname, the bird has spirituality? Wizards go barefoot on the "Mountain of Knives", people have light skills? As the old saying goes: "Ten years can show talent, ten years is difficult to recognize a river and lake." ”
The people of the rivers and lakes are the grassroots of society, and they are widely traded and miscellaneous. In the old days, the so-called "three hundred and sixty lines", the so-called "seventy-two oligarchs", and the so-called "hundred industries and hundreds of works" were all generalized and could not be described in detail. I made a video of the acrobatics of a hundred workers, and by the beginning of the 21st century, the more than 200 lines recorded were only peeping leopards in the tube, not the whole picture, most of them were remnants, and they were about to disappear.
Earlier, I collected and published "A Glimpse of Folk", a visual anthropologist Mr. Deng Qiyao's preface: a historical work on folk life narrated by images, narrating the history of the wild outside the main history, and the history of the people under the foundation of the heroic history. There is no doubt that as part of the "double-line history", the pictorial history of this kind of folk life will also enter the life history of the people alongside the history of heroes.
The Chinese nation, the farming economy for thousands of years, self-sufficiency, handicraft industry with the development of the development, livelihood skills with the kitsch, this is the accumulation of agricultural civilization. "Hundred Works", remembering the history of the creation of hundreds of works, remembering the appearance of all living beings, this was once the way of life of the people, although it is only a visual history of the old industry, but it has made a true record for the life history of the people.
author
July 2021
popcorn
Still old-fashioned stove, still hand-cranked cannonball-shaped pressure cooker, still long cloth bag. The pressure cooker is cast iron, and the shell highlights the origin of "Shanghai"; the side security pressure gauge. Popcorn principle: closed pot, heating and pressurizing corn, and then instantaneous decompression release, the rice is then sprayed into the cloth bag, that is, puffed food.
Popcorn is a traditional Chinese craft, and the Southern Song Dynasty's "Wu Junzhi" records the custom: "The popcorn valley is in the kettle, the name is Bo Lou, also known as rice flowers." Each person blew himself up, and he was blamed for the rest of the year. "The Song people celebrated the Lantern Festival, and there was a custom of exploding glutinous valleys. Zhao Yi of the Qing Dynasty had the "Poem of Bursting Bo Lou": "Enter the 100,000 homes in Wumen in the east, and the families burst into the valley Bu Nianhua." Just put down the golden millet in the pot and turn it into a white jade flower. The red pink beauty occupies the happy event, and the white-headed old man asks about the career. Xiao Lai made up his sons, and several pieces of plum blossoms were inserted into the sideburns. "孛娄" is a symbolic word that imitates the valley of explosions.
Well-informed Americans, but have never seen such a clever, the American Discovery Channel science program "Rumor Terminator", the experimenter frame bulletproof glass, wear bulletproof clothing, adventure popcorn, online wildfire.
Blowing sugar man
The skill of the sugar blower belongs to China's "top ten traditional folk skills". Sugar Man, a snack and toy for children. The name "sugar blower", but rarely blows "people", more "animals", because children love animals more.
In the old days, sugar blowers used to pick up their burdens, walk temple fairs, and string streets and alleys. The blowing sugar burden is fully equipped: the front bearer is a small cabinet, the two sides are nailed with rectangular wooden frames, the central box is equipped with copper rings, and the rope head wears a flat burden. The counter is placed on a log plate, the grid is painted on it, the width and narrowness are different, the birds, animals and insects are drawn in the grid, and the pointers on the plate are dialed, and what is pointed is blown, so as to attract children. In the upper right corner of the cabinet, a straw handle is inserted, and the blown "sugar man" is inserted on the side. The back cabinet has no panel, put a charcoal stove, a brass pot with a brasser, the pot is boiled with syrup, and the bottom few drawers put raw materials, bamboo skewers and charcoal.
Sugar blowing process: heat the caramel to soft, shovel down the small ball of palms, knead into a ball, the index finger pokes a deep nest, that is, tighten the outer mouth, forming a sugar packet; the closing point is stretched into a tail, gradually thinned to silk, suddenly broken tail into the airway, the mouth blows inward; the sugar packet gradually bulges, and blows and pinches, gradually appears, pulls the legs, pulls the ears, points clear, a small animal is formed. Then insert a bamboo stick and swirl it around in a showy way. It's just a minute's work. "
Tumbler
The traditional residential structure in the south, or civil engineering, or brick wood, dobb green tiles. Green tiles are also called yin and yang tiles, bois pitched to each other, fish scales stacked on top of each other, forming a row of tile ditches and corrugations, rainy days, rainwater flowing down the tile ditch to the eaves. Yin and yang tiles drain rain, and breathe.
When the wind blows and the sun shines and rain, the tiles will inevitably break or be misplaced due to sliding; the roof of the tiles will be filled with soil, leaves or dead branches for a long time, blocking the tile ditches, and pouring the tiles in the case of heavy rain. Therefore, it is necessary to ask a bricklayer to turn the tiles on the roof to check for leaks and remove debris.
The technical content of flipping tiles is not high, but it is necessary to be bold and careful, and those who are afraid of heights do not dare to do this line. Before turning over the tiles on the top, enter the house to observe: rafters, trusses, which sections are broken, which sections are decayed; which rows of tiles, there are leaks. Knowing what to do, I went to the roof.
Hunch over, gently step on the rafters or trusses, find the broken place, change the wooden strips, and fix the nails. Then turn over the leaky tiles, good tiles back cover, bad tile top cover.
If there are many leaks in the tile house, the roof tiles must be completely turned over. It is necessary to ask three or five bricklayers, divide labor and cooperate, lift the tiles, pick up the tiles, pile the tiles, and pass them on to each other. After that, a broom is used to remove the mud and debris, replace the broken tiles, add new tiles, and then re-bois. Bubi, the corrugated and eaves had to be redone.
As for the green brick houses, temple ancestral halls, as well as tiles such as tiles, dripping water, and ridge tiles, they must be restored as they are.
Today's high-rise buildings and Western-style villas have sprung up after the rain, and the number of green tile houses has gradually decreased, and the bricklayers are naturally rare.
This article is excerpted from the book "Hundred Workers" by Pan Wei, authorized by Guangxi Normal University Press)
Selected Chinese books
"Hundred Works"
Pan Wei
Guangxi Normal University Press
September 2021
The history of folk creation, the life of the people.
"Hundred Workers" is a collection of pictures and essays recording the Chinese folk industry, the author visited various places to collect information on the hundred industries, or visited the labor site, or searched for craftsmen, took nearly 250 pictures, the industries involved are closely related to the lives of the people, including some disappearing, "intangible heritage" level of the old trades, old crafts, they were once an important existence for people to survive. The book consists of seven chapters, from the fields of food, clothing, housing, industrial and commercial economy, culture and entertainment to show the importance of the "three hundred and sixty lines" to people's lives, in the rise and fall of the old and new industries, witness the flow of economic and social life of the times, and explore the unchanging humanistic spirit in material changes.
This is an industry video history, but also a history of social life, but also the feelings of the times and life memories of every ordinary person. From primitive handicrafts to mechanical production, from rural market towns to modern cities, the old trades retain the life we once had, and the old things are engraved with the time of a generation, they are the traces of the times, and they are the cicadas of civilization. History has never been a cold and abstract concept, using images to record the labor and life of the people, to understand the labor wisdom and life philosophy of the Chinese people, and to inherit the internal temperature of material life.
Good books in Chinese
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