"Millet, cotton back basket, man back horse riding seven feet." This slip of the tongue has been circulated for many years in Mile Village, Dougu Town, Weining Yi Hui and Miao Autonomous County. The "millet" here refers to the village of Miller. For hundreds of years, the local area has made a living from sand pottery. Villagers carry the prepared sand pottery on their backs and horses, and walk the streets and alleys to sell.
During the Spring Festival, the cold wind in the mountains of Wumeng is cold, but in the home of Liao Liangqing, a villager in Miller Village, it is already a busy scene: excavation and storage have begun.
Liao Liangqing shows how to knead the shape of sand pottery
Liao Liangqing, 45 years old this year, is the inheritor of Guizhou's provincial intangible cultural heritage "Weining sand pottery making technology", and the only craftsman in Miller Village who still insists on sand pottery making, known as the "intangible cultural heritage professor" in the mountains.
Liao Liangqing was thin and had deep eyes, sitting in front of the turntable to pull the blank, his expression was frozen, and he often sat for more than ten hours. A few changes in his body indicate his love of the craft: his arms barely straightened out, and some of his fingers were almost flattened.
From childhood memories, Sand Pottery has been integrated into his life. At the age of 6, he was able to burn toy models such as cars by himself, and was considered by his neighbors to have a talent for pottery. Unlike other quiet villages deep in the mountains, when he was a child, the night in Miller Village was filled with the sound of "banging" of bellows and firing sand pottery. In order to preserve his childhood memories, Liao Liangqing still keeps two earthen kilns in the backyard of the house, firing sand pottery in the most traditional way.
During the period of poverty alleviation, the silent "Wusa roasted tea" industry was revitalized, and Liao Liangqing, who had been working in Kunming for many years, was invited back to return to his old business.
In the past, he said, roasted teapots were the best-selling sand pottery products in the village. As the local saying goes, "The water rises and the tea can be spicy, and the skimmed tea is a good tea", which means that the tea cans used in the village of Miller are used to stir-fry tea, and the worst quality tea can also become delicious.
Liao Liangqing is showing off the sand pottery he made
In 2005, in Zhongshui Town, Weining Autonomous County, not far from The Village of Miller, archaeological excavations unearthed a number of Han Dynasty clay pots, proving that there may have been a tradition of making sand pottery in this area.
In recent years, with the help of his status as a non-hereditary inheritor, he has gone out of the mountains, studied in Jingdezhen and other places, participated in the Shenzhen Cultural Fair, Guizhou Danzhai Intangible Cultural Heritage Week and other activities, and exchanged with his peers. Inheritance does not mean holding on to the lack of defects or making things behind closed doors, in his view, innovation is the best way to inherit non-genetically. In the past, the roasted teapot did not have a mouth, and he pinched out his mouth when pulling the blank to make it more practical and more beautiful.
He said that making sand pottery is a very test of people's patience, and it is not good to be impetuous and impatient, so it is necessary to be really interested. For novices, if you want to fully master, you need to learn at least 2 years, coupled with the low output of handmade production and poor economic benefits, few people are willing to learn from teachers. In order to better inherit the craft, Liao Liangqing touched the net in middle age and used the Kuaishou platform to shoot short videos and live broadcasts to show his skills.
Before the Spring Festival, he had just finished making more than 1,000 roasted tea cans and packing them for shipment. In the new year, he will continue to adhere to the sand pottery business he loves, and hopes that more young people will learn this craft and do a good job in passing it on.
Source: Xinhua News Agency
Author: Liu Zhiqiang
First Instance: Ding Xi
Second instance: Li Bei
Third trial: Wang Xingtao