The oversized cloth tiger in the workshop is 2.6 meters long, 2.1 meters high, 1.2 meters wide and weighs 100 kilograms.
Lei Zhichao
Lei Zhichao at work
Palm-sized cloth tiger
□ Dahe News Yu video reporter Yu Yang Li Yukun intern Guo Lei Wentu
The 61-year-old Lei Zhichao's eyes were shining brightly, and a pair of large hands picked up scissors and played with ease. After a while, the shape of a "king" word was cut out. His desk is lined with various images of "cloth tigers", and the festive atmosphere of the Spring Festival of the Year of the Tiger has been filled in his studio in advance.
Every year near the Spring Festival, Lei Zhichao is busier than usual, and in the current few days when the Lunar Year of the Tiger is approaching, he is particularly busy. "2022 is the Year of the Tiger, and it will soon be the Spring Festival, and there are more orders received these days." Lei Zhichao said that in the Year of the Tiger, everyone likes to please a good color head, and uses a cloth tiger as a Mascot for the New Year, which is both beautiful and generous and should be festive, and is more popular.
The earliest derived from the tiger totem, circulated for thousands of years "mascot"
As the inheritor of the intangible cultural heritage of the "Cloth Tiger" production in Zhoukou City, Lei Zhichao has been engaged in the manual creation of cloth tigers for about 50 years. In the past half century, he has become a master craftsman from an apprentice in that year, his hair has become gray and his face has aged, and the only constant is his adherence and dedication to traditional culture.
According to Lei Zhichao, the earliest "cloth tiger" can be traced back to the tiger totem worship in the Fuxi period. The famous ethnologist Liu Yaohan wrote in the book "New Exploration of the Source of Chinese Civilization": "Fuxi was originally a tiger totem, and after the Qin and Han Dynasties, there were historians who thought that the dragon was the true destiny of the heavenly son. According to this account, the tiger totem originated from fuxi and predates the dragon totem. And Huaiyang is the place where Fuxi built the capital, so the totem worship of "cloth tigers" has a unique inheritance advantage in Huaiyang, and the production of this folk handicraft also has an incomparable fertile soil in Huaiyang.
Because the image of the tiger is the eternal king of the forest and the head of the hundred beasts, the "cloth tiger" that worships as a totem is given the blessing meaning of "driving away evil spirits and avoiding disasters and protecting peace". So far, every year from February 2nd to March 3rd of the lunar calendar, when the Huaiyang Taihao Tomb holds the ancestral meeting, a variety of cloth tigers are the "punch card" mascots that most tourists must buy.
At the same time, in recent years, the Huaiyang District Party Committee and the District Government attach great importance to the development of the cultural and tourism industry, and every year during the Ancestral Meeting, they will specially launch the booth of the cloth tiger to introduce the Huaiyang cloth tiger to tourists and display traditional old crafts, so that the Huaiyang cloth tiger has become famous, so that the thick culture of this "ancient memory" can be better inherited and continued.
"Now, the cloth tiger has become a landmark folk artwork in our Huaiyang cultural tourism industry, and has been included in the zhoukou intangible cultural heritage protection list, which can be said to have endured for thousands of years and has also been full of vitality in the new era." Ruan Huaifeng, head of the information section of the Propaganda Department of the Huaiyang District CPC Committee, said.
Traditional skills become the "golden rice bowl" for farmers to increase income
As a pure handmade handicraft, the production process of cloth tiger is roughly: dyeing cloth, cutting, loading, sewing, and drawing.
However, with the change of the times, the production techniques of cloth tigers have also been improved and innovated. Far from saying that in the 1980s and 1990s, the filling of the cloth tiger was still rice bran and sawdust, but now, it has been replaced with a new type of environmentally friendly pearl cotton, which is softer than the past and looks more vivid and full.
In Lei Zhichao's studio, there is a very large cloth tiger, which is 2.6 meters long, 2.1 meters high, 1.2 meters wide, and weighs 100 kilograms, which was carefully designed and produced by Lei Zhichao in 2 months. This large cloth tiger has a majestic and stable appearance, but also does not lose its agility and affinity, and is Lei Zhichao's "treasure of the town hall".
"Basically, the cloth tigers you can find and think of, I have them here." Lei Zhichao said that in his studio, the largest cloth tiger weighs 100 kilograms, and the smallest is only the size of a palm. Red, yellow, blue, blue, in addition to the color collocation is very elaborate, the styling design is also very different styles, some tigers and tigers, some cute and cute, both exaggerated abstract shapes, and cartoon anthropomorphic design, can be described as all-encompassing, all-encompassing.
Lei Zhichao picked up a cartoon anthropomorphic cloth tiger and said: "This is the tribute work for the 100th anniversary of the founding of the party in 2021, I designed the tiger into a humanized pattern with a thumb outstretched, and then wrote 'always follow the party' on the chest, which was very popular after listing, and online orders were particularly hot." ”
Because the production technique of cloth tigers is not complicated, it can be done by skilled farmers. As a result, The cloth tiger has also become a "golden rice bowl" for local farmers to increase their income and become rich. In Lei Zhichao's studio, more than 30 left-behind elderly people and women participate in the production of cloth tigers all year round, and the annual income can reach a total of more than 300,000 yuan.
Lei Zhichao said that it will soon be the Year of the Tiger, and the cloth tiger will be highly sought after as a traditional mascot, and there will be more and more new orders. "When the time comes, give the villagers a salary increase, so that everyone can not only inherit folk crafts, but also increase their income and become rich." He was still buried in his own work, but the happiness full of expectation had already climbed up to the top of his brow.