Magic Hand Dance Green Bamboo Between Longitude and Latitude (New National Tide)

Pan Yunfeng is making bamboo weaving. Photo by Jiang Han, Xinhua News Agency

First, use a wood knife to cut off the bamboo joint protrusion, follow the split opening, a few clicks, several meters long moso bamboo was broken in half. Continuing to divide with a wooden knife, the original whole piece of bamboo was divided into several pieces. Then use a special tool to scrape off the surface of the green skin, and in the blink of an eye, the thick moso bamboo at the mouth of the bowl becomes a thin but tough bamboo grate. Holding it in your hand, the bamboo shook out of the waves, which made people marvel.

This is the scene in the short video "Broken Bamboo" by Douyin blogger Pan Yunfeng. Today, the short video has reached 2.19 million likes on the platform. After some netizens forwarded his video to overseas platforms such as TikTok, it received tens of millions of views. In the comment area, some people praised the bamboo weaving craft "flowing in the clouds" and "breaking bamboo"; some people lamented that the bamboo weaving master was "full of calluses on his hands"; some people said that the video reminded him of his childhood life and evoked distant nostalgia; and many foreign netizens praised the bamboo weaving master for "making the most amazing crafts with the simplest things"... This plainly dressed "bamboo weaving uncle", why can he explode vibrato? It all started more than 30 years ago.

Pan Yunfeng was born in Hengling Village, Lin'an District, Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, in 1984, at the age of 14, he began to learn bamboo weaving with his uncle, and then followed two other masters to learn the art, and finally graduated after 4 years. However, with the increasing abundance of daily necessities, the market for bamboo weaving is getting smaller and smaller. In the mid-1990s, Pan Yunfeng had no choice but to change careers, giving up the craft he had learned since childhood and choosing to go out to work and earn a living.

In the days of wandering around, Pan Yunfeng worked as an oil well manager, a hotel employee, and also did welding maintenance... What made him reluctant was that his craft was useless, and he could only do some simple work.

In 2019, the child went to college, and Pan Yunfeng also decided to return to his hometown Lin'an. By chance, he saw a colleague who made bamboo weaving on the short video platform, which ignited his enthusiasm for regaining the bamboo weaving craft.

Pan Yunfeng said: "At the beginning, I didn't quite understand, but I saw that the number of 'followers' of my peers rose to 10,000 in just a few months. I feel that my skills are not worse than others, so why not shoot some? In this way, Pan Yunfeng registered his Douyin account and began his live broadcast career.

Because it is from scratch, Pan Yunfeng's initial uploaded video is always a small segment, the camera and soundtrack are also very confusing, netizens commented that "I can't understand it". Under the advice of enthusiastic netizens, he continued to study, learn short video production, and gradually formed his own style.

Pan Yunfeng said: "The production process of bamboo weaving takes a long time, and it cannot be shot to the end, otherwise netizens will look boring. My videos are short and fast-paced, mainly by adjusting the camera speed to form a sense of rhythm to ensure the completion rate and playback volume. "Although the video is short, the process of conceiving and shooting is as ingenious as making bamboo weaving." I think in advance about what action to show and what shooting angle to choose. When shooting, I also try to cooperate with the lens, and the actions that are not done well will be repeatedly filmed. Pan Yunfeng told reporters that a video should be filmed for about two or three days, recording sixty or seventy materials, and then spending a day editing, fine-tuning and soundtrack according to fluency.

In order to keep improving his short video works, Pan Yunfeng set aside the old house on the mountain as a special venue for recording videos, carefully designed each shot, and carefully adjusted the speed of each video... Gradually, Pan Yunfeng found his own "positioning" and also gained attention. Today, his Douyin account "Chuangyi" has 5.15 million followers.

From making traditional bamboo umbrellas and pot brushes to innovative bamboo cribs, mobile phone racks, and small coffee tables, Pan Yunfeng's videos have become more and more popular, and the bamboo weaving live streaming business he and his brother have cooperated with has become more and more prosperous. This not only increased Pan Yunfeng's personal income, but also broadened the sales channels of bamboo handicrafts for his peers. But in his opinion, the identity of his own craftsman will never change.

In 2008, bamboo weaving was included in the second batch of national intangible cultural heritage list. Pan Yunfeng said that compared with the teachers, his craftsmanship is "very ordinary", but it is "just looking very powerful in front of the layman", and in front of the insider, he can only be regarded as a "flower fist embroidered leg". He believes that he is still a long way from being a true "master".

Although there are a large number of fans on short video platforms at home and abroad, for Pan Yunfeng, he pays more attention to how to make the old craft of bamboo weaving revitalize in contemporary times through improvement and innovation. Pan Yunfeng found that his fans like to see creative things, he consciously studied and learned the shape design of new objects, and also referred to the characteristics of other material handicrafts such as wood and metal, imitated and recreated with bamboo weaving, and designed a piece of handicrafts that were both creative and practical.

"For modern people, the bamboo weaving craft has become 'outdated' in terms of cost and practicality, and many old crafts have gradually disappeared with the death of teachers and masters, and many people who buy bamboo furniture today are actually buying a feeling." Pan Yunfeng makes no secret of the dilemma and limitations of traditional bamboo weaving in the industrial era. But he has good expectations for the future: "Old crafts can also have innovation, and now, on the short video platform, more and more people are beginning to like bamboo weaving, so that bamboo crafts can enter their lives." In Pan Yunfeng's view, instead of sticking to the rules, it is better to take the initiative to innovate and combine old craftsmanship with modern aesthetic tastes. He believed that as long as there were still people who loved it, the old craft of bamboo weaving would not die.