Text, photo/ Yangcheng Evening News all-media reporter Hu Yan
"Burning incense leads to a leisurely step, drinking tea to open a clean feast", in ancient times, Su Shi burned incense in the temple to explore the quiet, and now, baishi shannons also let the yaxiang street fill the alley. Yaxiang Street is located in Liaobu Town, Dongguan City, Guangdong Province, is a famous incense trading market, one of the four famous cities in Guangdong, a national intangible cultural heritage old street, for Liaobu Town ancient thirteen elements, operating agarwood-based incense, can be described as the distribution center of Guanxiang. Yaxiang Street was formed in the Song Dynasty and continued to prosper in the Ming and Qing dynasties. In recent years, Yaxiang Street has strived to become the largest agarwood trading center in the country.
Tooth Incense Street
The afterglow flowed for thousands of generations, and the childhood was full of nostalgia
Wang Yacheng still remembers that after the cattle were released, his childhood friend jumped out of the house to play with a cigarette, and he still had to stay to collect incense. The excavated agarwood pieces were full of dirt and dust, and when they were cleaned up and packed, a wave of dust particles drifted into the air, choking Wang Yacheng uncomfortable. "What I hated at that time has now become my career."
Most of the incense business in Yaxiang Street is family heritage. The wang family has been engaged in agarwood for four generations, and Wang Yacheng runs a shop called "Zhiyuan Xiangju" on Yaxiang Street in Liaobu Town. Great-grandfather collected agarwood as a Chinese medicinal material; grandfather organized villagers and led teams to Hainan, Guangdong, and Guangxi to collect incense; his father mainly planted incense and incense picking, and mobilized villagers to carry out incense picking work and incense processing in accordance with unified standards; and in Wang Yacheng's generation, he not only opened a factory, but also paid attention to product research and development.
Agarwood carved artwork
Agarwood is produced from the agarwood tree (white wood incense tree), after the tree is injured by insect moths or cuts, it secretes oil to protect the wound, and the oil and wood are mixed with the wood after years of deposition to form agarwood. Wanxiang, a Lingnan treasure, is the only incense in China named after a place name. Wanxiang flower and Wanxiang tree are the only flowers and trees in China that are named after local names. In 2011, Guanxianghua was identified as dongguan's city image logo.
Liaobu Town was founded in the Zhenguan period of the Tang Dynasty, with a history of more than 1370 years, and the town has a long history of agarwood industry. The "Guangdong Chronicle" records that "most of the people in Guan started with incense". During the Song Dynasty, Wanyi had widely planted Wanxiang trees, and because of the suitable soil quality and good quality of spices, Wanxiang once became a royal tribute.
The "Dongguan County Chronicle" records that "Guanxiang began to weigh heavily in the ming dynasty". At that time, merchants gathered on the docks, and Wanxiang originated from Liaobu, and surrounded the streets of Southeast Asia, Japan, Arabia and other places. Qu Dajun's "Guangdong Xinyu" said that "there are four cities in eastern Guangdong, one is Xiangxiang City in Liaobu, Dongguan", Liaobuxiang City and Guangzhou Flower Market, Lianzhou ZhuShi, Luofu Medicine City and guangdong "four famous cities", and Xiangshi ranks first among the four cities, and Guanxiang is exported to Nanyang, Arab countries and other places.
Shannon hooks incense
According to the Liaobu Town column of the Dongguan Municipal People's Government, Liaobu Town was the "Guanxiang" trade distribution center during the Ming and Qing dynasties, and has a deep historical relationship with Hong Kong, and the name "Hong Kong" is derived from Guanxiang. There is a folk saying that "Wanxiang was sent to Hong Kong for transshipment, and on the way, the ship caught fire, and the aroma was overflowing, hence the name". Another theory is that "Wanxiang was transported to the port of Hong Kong, a large amount of Wanxiang was piled up at the wharf, and the port where incense was transported and sold got its name because of the aroma".
The incense trade was once in decline. In 2009, Liaobu Town launched the "Ancient Xiang City, Modern Xiangdu" Wanxiang Cultural Project, trying to recreate the lost Xiang Market in front of the eyes of the world, and Wanxiang was re-known. After many efforts, in 2014, Liaobuxiang City was selected into the fourth batch of national intangible cultural heritage list.
Every weekend, Yaxiang Street will hold various incense knowledge related activities
Smell the incense and know the good and the good, and practice the craftsmanship
"Xianglao Li" Li Wenfu is a celebrity in Mao, Guangdong, and many local villagers are Shannon, he has followed his father to the mountains to collect incense since 1972, and in his early years he also set up a stall in Liaobu Town to sell incense, and in 2012, he became the owner of the "Xianglao Li Agarwood" shop on Yaxiang Street. This year is the tenth year of store operation, and the fiftieth year of Li Wenfu's exploration and expansion of the world of agarwood. Under the influence of Li Wenfu, her daughter and son-in-law opened branches in Jieyang, Guangdong, and the family has been deeply cultivating the field of agarwood for five generations. "He is an 'authority figure' in Yaxiang Street, and everyone comes to him when they have a problem." Tian Xinjun of the Xiangxiang Street Xiangshi Cultural Tourism Management Company told reporters.
Li Wenfu is in the shop
"Agarwood is the most elegant thing." Li Wenfu has full devotion and concentration on the agarwood industry, and has his own set of methods for identification, production and processing. He said that Guangdong, Hainan, Fujian, Guangxi and Yunnan are the main incense producing areas in China, and the color and aroma of agarwood produced around the world are different. The top agarwood is produced from a century-old tree, so be patient and wait for the oil to come to fruition. In general, the darker the color of the incense, the more oily the content, and the more oily the incense, the more watery the incense is usually. Although there is "sinking" in the name, there are also fine agarwood that are floating. "The state of the surface layer of the incense and the level of the fragrance are the basis, looking, touching, smelling, basically judging the year, origin and quality of the incense."
More than 20 years ago, due to a chance encounter with agarwood in the home of a calligrapher's friend, the Heilongjiang people fell into the world of agarwood in Haibo, and then simply left the automotive industry that had done a good job and opened a shop in Yaxiang Street in 2015, the name of the shop is "Xiang Tianxia". According to Yu Haibo, agarwood can be divided into 3 series, namely Wanxiang (domestic agarwood), Hoi An (Vietnam and other places agarwood), Sin Chew (Indonesia, the Philippines and other places of agarwood). The biggest feature of Guangdong agarwood of the Wanxiang system is that it has a cool taste, and when the tail incense is tasted, the rich nut aroma will condense in the nose and not disperse. If it burns, it will become fragrant and sweet, fragrant and fragrant. This is also the main type of sales in the store.
"He can sit alone until 1 a.m." The wife described Yu Haibo this way. The reporter saw that there was a pile of white wood blocks and a few pieces of brown agarwood in front of the store, Yu Haibo sat on the side, shaved off the white wood on the wooden block with a knife, and got a small piece of agarwood after ten minutes. This process is called "incense", followed by drying, oil repair and other processes, which can be used to refine essential oils, flour and make incense. The craftsman's craftsmanship is time-consuming and laborious, and after years of incense, Yu Haibo's left thumb has long maintained the posture of holding the wooden block, and it is now unable to straighten.
Yu Haibo sat and was sometimes busy late into the night
Seek new breakthroughs and build famous brands
In recent years, the price of agarwood has risen a lot, and the market has gone all the way up. Internet sales are also impacting the Shannons in Yaxiang Street. Wen Guolin, secretary general of Dongguan Agarwood Association and owner of Junlin Guanxiangtang, told reporters that in the past, Yaxiang Street was very lively every holiday, and the roadway was crowded when it was most popular, and the average annual turnover of each physical store was about 2 million yuan. But the business in these two or three years is not as good as in the past.
Wen Guolin showed reporters artificially ground incense
The aroma of wine is also afraid of the deep alley. At present, this group of ingenious and ingenious Shannon farmers have sought breakthroughs in many aspects with the support of industry associations. Wen Guolin said that the stores are committed to promoting production automation in accordance with the industry's unified standards, such as using fully automatic machines to polish incense powder, make fixed-length incense sticks, or extract essential oils. He further explained that the efficiency of manual and machine production is different from that of the product, the efficiency difference is more than ten times, and in terms of product taste, the aroma of the essential oil steamed by hand with a large pot is stronger, so the owner will choose the production method according to the actual needs.
Wang Yacheng analyzed that many young people are interested in agarwood, but do not know how to identify good incense and how to play its role, so in the next 10 years, the dissemination and development of incense may become the market dominant. He and his friends jointly established a cultural communication company "Non-attack Culture", which plans to start classes in the second half of this year to teach the knowledge of tasting and using incense. Wang Yacheng said that he is improving the training system of the enterprise, and the agarwood-related learning certificates issued from here are more influential in Dongguan and Guangdong.
Over the past few years, Li Wenfu has successfully crossed borders, developed agarwood tea, agarwood perfume and other agarwood products, and become the owner of an incense company with its own brand, of which agarwood perfume will be launched this year. At the same time, the daughter and son-in-law are responsible for the company's live broadcast of incense on e-commerce platforms such as Douyin, and also disseminate the knowledge of incense making and tasting, and currently has more than 20,000 fans.
Wen Guolin said that bringing goods on the live broadcast platform is the sales model adopted by many stores in Yaxiang Street, and on the track where quality and sales are advancing together, Li Wenfu is the leader. He said that the Agarwood Association will continue to contact the live broadcast base to provide better e-commerce resources for stores and continue to improve the Agarwood Forum. In addition, the China (Dongguan) International Agarwood Culture Industry Expo held every year is also the only way to promote agarwood culture to the public.
Source | Yangcheng Evening News Yangcheng Pie
Editor-in-charge | Zhang Degang