Zhuang Wenjia, who is making ancient lanterns. Photo by Huang Wanfen
The Lantern Festival has arrived, and the lights in Xiamen are colorful. In a small workshop on Songbailin Street in Xiamen's Tong'an District, lampmaker Zhuang Wenjia is concentrating on making ancient lanterns.
Make skeletons, paste lamp surfaces, paint color pictures... Around the Spring Festival, there was an endless stream of people who went to Zhuang Wenjia to order lanterns, and because each lantern needed to be made by hand, the past three months became the busiest time of the year. Compared with the various forms of modern flower lanterns, the ancient lanterns made of bamboo grates and cotton paper have more traditional cultural charm.
According to Zhuang Wenjia, the production of ancient lanterns should first be made of bamboo poles, then pasted with cotton paper, and then used pigments to play flowers and write, and after drying, coated with clear oil to waterproof and brighten, so that a lantern can be preserved and used for decades.
Zhuang Wenjia's workshop is full of all kinds of ancient lanterns. Courtesy of Rong Media Center, Tong'an District
In the small space, there are a lantern made, sky lanterns, barrel lamps, surname lights, dragon and tiger lights... Palace temple completion, wedding, Tim Ding into the wealth, housewarming new homes, people always like to buy a few new lanterns to add joy, and ordinary lanterns are different, dragon and tiger lamps are generally hung in front of the temple, mostly used by villagers to pray for blessings.
"Ordinary small lanterns can be made in 20 minutes, while it takes 3 days to make a pair of dragon and tiger lamps with a diameter of 70-80 cm." Zhuang Wenjia said: "The technical content of making dragon and tiger lamps is high, and in a limited arc space, it is necessary to paint the dragon and tiger at one time, and cannot be drafted, and the most testing thing is the painting skill." ”
"Tiger Lantern" made by Zhuang Wenjia. Courtesy of Rong Media Center, Tong'an District
In the Year of the Tiger, when painting a tiger lamp, it is necessary to paint "tiger and tiger vitality".
"My father was best at making dragon and tiger lamps. The tiger on the tiger lamp pays attention to the demeanor, and when I first learned to draw the tiger lamp, everyone said that I painted like a cat. Zhuang Wenjia said with a smile. Subsequently, day after day, he copied the tiger form on the New Year painting, and after years of training, he could now draw a mighty tiger at will.
Xu Jitong, an expert in the literature and history of Tong'an District, said that Songbailin Street was the most concentrated place for Tong'an handicraft workshops in the early days, when there were 5 lantern workshops, and the flower lanterns made in the place were hung all over the streets and alleys of Tong'an, but with the change of the times, only Zhuang Wenjia's workshop was left.
Zhuang Wenjia is the third generation of family lantern-making inheritors, and his family adheres to the ancient method of lantern making technology spanning more than a hundred years. "I want to keep doing it." Zhuang Wenjia said that his daughter has now learned the art of lamp making, and the craft will not be lost.
It is reported that Zhuang Wenjia produces more than 1,000 ancient lanterns every year, and in addition to selling them locally, some of the dragon and tiger lanterns he made are also exported overseas. "Overseas Chinese hang the dragon and tiger lanterns of their hometowns in the local xinligong temple." Zhuang Wenjia said that as the saying goes, seeing the lamp is like seeing the homeland, and the lights in the hometown are warmer. (Chen Bo, Xia Haibin, Xu Jitong)