The 28th Zigong International Dinosaur Lantern Festival's "net red" light group "Jingwei Goddess" quickly came out of the circle, and for more than a month, Zigong Lantern World has ushered in 200,000 passenger flows. Produced by "Peeling onion Video"
Night falls, the northeast corner of Zigong City, Sichuan Province, the 28th Zigong International Dinosaur Lantern Festival, as high as more than 100 meters of light groups to small can be full of lighting all lit up, the lake and mountains, thousands of heads, a dream world of light opened.
On February 15, the Zigong Lantern Festival, as one of the sub-venues of CCTV's 2022 Lantern Party, was unveiled in the circle of friends of Zigong Lantern People.
This Spring Festival, Zigong lanterns brushed enough sense of existence. The "ice pier" and "snow rongrong" colored lanterns made by Zigong stayed in the main media center of the Winter Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, becoming the focus of media attention at home and abroad; on social platforms, various video pictures brushed the screen and appeared on the hot search list, which was praised by netizens as "Oriental Fantasy and Cyberpunk Together" and "The First Lantern Festival in the Universe". Even in the case of daily flow restriction, for more than a month, Zigong Lantern World has welcomed 200,000 passengers.
The Beijing News reporter visited and found that behind the "out of the circle" of the Zigong Lantern Society is the exploration of the industrialization of colored lanterns in an old industrial city in the west for decades. In Zigong, there are about 80,000 seasonal lantern craftsmen, and near the end of the year, the "lantern guests" are gathered together and fly to various places like migratory birds to make lanterns, known as "the national lantern festivals are all Zigong lantern festivals".
Under the combined effect of the tradition of salt merchant history and the order of the industrial age, the Zigong Lantern Society has formed a tolerant and open foundation. Dai Yanling, director of the China Lantern Museum, said that the Zigong Lantern Festival is a beautiful story of the world in the Chinese language, and it is also an international perspective to see Chinese culture.
The 28th Zigong International Dinosaur Lantern will be brushed with the "Jingwei Goddess". Beijing News reporter Li Zhao photographed
"Goddess of Jingwei"
A seaweed-like blue hair, a noble and flexible face wearing a mysterious half-face mask, dark purple eyeshadow under the eyes hanging low, slowly opening and closing under the action of mechanical transmission technology. In the thick black night, the 22-meter-high "Jingwei Goddess" has a slight chin, and the whole body emits the fluorescence of the blue main tone, solemn and holy.
The bustling crowd held up their phones to take pictures, leaving them stunned.
This is the most out-of-circle "net red" light group of this year's Zigong Lantern Festival. The "Shan Hai Yizhi" division, taking the mythology of the Chinese nation as the clue, has created a real picture of the ancient style of the national tide, the mythological protagonist of the "Classic of Mountains and Seas" integrates the elements of transmission, fog, sound effects, and light change into a lamp, and the jingwei goddess is a well-deserved "C position".
On January 29, Li Weiwei took a group photo with the cast and crew who played the Jingwei Goddess, and the costumes of the "Jingwei Goddess" were all designed by Li Weiwei. Beijing News reporter Li Zhao photographed
On January 29, in an office in a hotel in Zigong, a reporter from the Beijing News met Li Weiwei, the designer of the "Jingwei Goddess". His daily life is in this space of about 20 or 30 square meters, and various manuscript sketches are stacked on his desk, including the first draft of the costume of the "Jingwei Goddess".
Jingwei Goddess is the main driving light group that took over last year's "Tree of Life". During the Spring Festival in 2021, the huge headlight group at the Zigong Lantern Festival photographed by Taiwanese writer Liao Zhongxin suddenly exploded: a portrait light group with a green glowing body swiped the screen on multiple video platforms, and netizens called it the "Tree of Life".
At first, no one thought that the "Tree of Life" would catch fire, it didn't even have a name, just called "so-and-so lot". Jiang Nan, one of the designers, told the Beijing News reporter that the light group was inspired by the image of the tree god of "Avatar". It was a bold innovation, with the large-scale use of green rarely seen during the festive Spring Festival, and the compassion and divinity in the eyes of the much-known Tree of Life came from the best eye-opening angles that the design team had calculated after many field tests.
After the "Tree of Life" was demolished, the steel frame structure and base were still preserved. The original plan was to make a Kunpeng with ninety thousand wings spread on the original steel frame structure, and the chief planner Li Weiwei had a version of the Kunpeng design draft, but he was not satisfied, and finally selected the allusion of "Jingwei Reclamation" in the "Classic of Mountains and Seas".
The ancient Chinese myth of haiyizhi district is the beast "Bai Ze". Courtesy of respondents
The Jingwei in the Classic of Mountains and Seas, "Its shape is like wu, the head of the text, the white beak, the barefoot, the name is: 'Jingwei', and its song is self-proclaimed." Li Weiwei's Jingwei sea wave hair is topped with a divine bird. However, in the actual production, for visual reasons, this sacred bird was moved to another place.
The giant human head image light group is similar to the idea of last year's "Tree of Life", and the organizers are worried about "fried cold rice", but Li Weiwei insists that the human image and the audience can produce strong emotional communication and are more impactful. In order to plump the image of the Jingwei Goddess, he also designed costume props for the offline "Jingwei Goddess" cast members.
Li Weiwei opened the computer and showed the prototype idea of the entire Zigong Lantern Festival. As the chief planner of the Lantern Festival, he was responsible for drafting all the conceptual sketches of the entire Lantern Festival, namely "Guotai Min'an", "Hometown Nostalgia", "Together to the Future", "Shangyuan Illusion", and "Dreamtime", including "Salt Rhyme Spring and Autumn", "Childhood Memories", "Happy Zodiac", "Salt Capital Impression", "Fish Penetrating into the Sea", "Mountains and Seas", "Puxi Lantern", "Dream Lotus Bay", "Together to the Future", "Creative Beauty Lantern Hui - Dinosaur Age", "Shangyuan Illusion", "Shangyuan Illusion", "Shangyuan Fantasy", "Dream", "Dreamy There are 14 themes of the Walk of Fame, The Milky Way of Time and Space, and the City of Salt.
"Flower market lights like day", as the ceiling of the Chinese Lantern Festival, the Zigong Lantern Society created a grand fantasy dream. Wandering among them, visitors can not only relive the romance of the Shangyuan Lantern Festival in the Tang Dynasty, but also "dialogue" with the distant sea of stars.
"Everything is done in a storytelling way, although it is very shallow, but it still tries to tell a variety of dimensions of emotion and life." Li Weiwei said that in the 3-kilometer tour route, the pursuit of story expression is, in a sense, a parting of the past warehouse-style stacking exhibition method.
On the evening of January 29, the 28th Zigong International Dinosaur Lantern Festival took "Together to the Future" as the theme to create a 228-meter-long giant lantern group. Courtesy of respondents
The lamp-making past of the old industrial city
Public information from the China Lantern Museum shows that the history of the Zigong Lantern Festival can be traced back to the Tang and Song dynasties, and the rich local salt industry economy provided material security for Zigong.
The first time the Government held the Spring Lantern Festival was in 1964. Originally, it was only an ordinary decision of the first-level local government to enrich the spiritual and cultural life of the masses during the Spring Festival by inheriting the traditional culture of the Chinese nation, but it sowed the seeds for the future name of "Lamp City".
From 1964 to 1986, Zigong held a total of 7 lantern festivals, which are generally called "Spring Lantern Festivals" by locals. Until 1987, the "Spring Lantern Festival" was renamed "Zigong International Dinosaur Lantern Festival Economic and Trade Fair".
In the mid-1980s, the production, theme, material selection, overall exhibition and scale, momentum and influence of Zigong lanterns made a breakthrough development, melting "shape, color, sound, light, movement" as a furnace, combining traditional folk crafts with modern science and technology, integrating knowledge, interest and artistry, and laying the basic characteristics of zigong lantern fairs.
For the national lantern making in that era, Wan Songtao, the representative of the Zigong Municipal Intangible Cultural Heritage Project, still remembers it vividly. His father was an art teacher at the school, and every year near the end of the year, his father would be assigned by the teaching committee to make a lamp. "The school selected 3 art teachers, and some fitters and electricians from the school-run factory, and everyone gathered together to spend a month or two polishing the lanterns that were about to be exhibited."
On January 29, Wan Songtao, a senior arts and crafts artist in the lantern industry and a representative inheritor of intangible cultural heritage projects, showed the palace lamp to the Beijing News reporter in his studio. Beijing News reporter Li Zhao photographed
The lamp gave Wan Songtao warm childhood memories. Father is very clever, will make Wan Songtao a "rabbit lamp", a paper paste lantern, using chess holes as a wheel, wire to wear it, the rabbit lamp can be dragged on the ground, "very spirited, other children are envious." ”
"Drawing drawings, from design to production." Wan Songtao recalled that in the 80s of the last century, there were no restrictions on the subject matter and skills, and various units racked their brains to try to get the top spot. The deepest impression is that in the Year of the Tiger, Wan Songtao's father made a large tiger lantern two or three meters high. At that time, the process was different from now, it was to use mud to shape the tiger, and then put on fiberglass, paint on the fiberglass, stick to the fur, and the teenage Wan Songtao helped his father lay hands.
In fact, in the 1980s and 1990s, the government took the lead in setting up a stage, and the lantern-making exhibition of various enterprises and institutions was a model that many cities had had, however, few cities in the country continued this model like Zigong.
Wan Songtao said that this is inseparable from the history of the old industrial city of Zigong. Zigong's machinery, electronics and chemical industries are complete, and the factory has trained a considerable number of skilled workers, who not only have skilled operation skills, but also have strong mechanical production and installation capabilities.
1988 was a special year for the Zigong Lantern Festival. The Zigong Lantern Festival went out of the house and held the "Beijing International Tourism Year Beihai Dragon Lantern Festival" in Beijing Beihai Park, with unprecedented pomp and circumstance, and the media reported that "one in every five Beijingers has seen the lantern festival". Also in this year, Zigong set up a permanent body of the Lantern Society, the Zigong City Light Trade Management Committee.
Zigong, who became famous, began to receive invitations to make lanterns in other cities across the country. Li Weiwei still remembers the grandeur of the lantern festival, "One year Zigong made lights for Wuhan, in East Lake Park, 5 yuan a ticket, it was really a crowded alley, and the entire city traffic was paralyzed." ”
On the evening of January 29, the Shangyuan Fantasy Area of the 28th Zigong International Dinosaur Lantern Festival created a fantastic spectacle of "Heavenly Palace Que, Qionglou Golden Pavilion, Shangyuan Market, and Lights Lingering". Beijing News reporter Li Zhao photographed
When the wave of layoffs hit in the 1980s and 1990s, lamp-making became a good way out for local workers. On the other hand, the huge demand for lamp making makes Li Weiwei keenly smell the business opportunities. He organized some workers to form a "lamp-making guerrilla group" to receive orders for the whole country, and Li Weiwei, who was born as a college student, was the first group of people to use the Internet, he did network promotion on search engine websites, wrote letters to various city trade unions and distributed leaflets, and soon someone came to the door.
"We started to make lights at the Shanghai City God Temple, and the other party asked to make the kind of small lamps hanging on the wall, and our Zigong lamps were very large, and we didn't know how to find us." However, Li Weiwei still designed according to the needs of customers and recalculated the miniature version of the small lamp.
At the end of the 1990s, when the lantern industry was opened to private enterprises, Li Weiwei and his partners took the lead in setting up a company, "We were the first private company to obtain a license from the Cultural Affairs Bureau." "The entry of private capital has injected lasting vitality into the industrialization of Zigong lanterns."
Li Weiwei recalled that after the Tribute Lantern Society also experienced a period of lows, "the pursuit of handicraft skills and towering Thanos aesthetic themes, old-fashioned folk aesthetics, warehousing-style placement, the exploration of human nature and civilization perfunctory, etc., and the contemporary people's complex emotional docking is too little." He wrote in an article, "Because of the excessive emphasis on red and yellow matches, it was ridiculed by the industry as a 'tomato scrambled egg and green onion' lantern festival." This situation was not reversed until 2019, when the government introduced professional cultural tourism companies.
In the "Tiger Year Electricity" light group, the two baby tigers turned to each other, moved toward the center, hugged and kissed each other, and their hearts beat faster and their faces turned red. Courtesy of respondents
"Migratory bird" type lamplighter
In 2013, when a media report on the Qinhuai Lantern Festival in Jiangsu Province, it was found that the Qinhuai Lanterns were a national intangible cultural heritage, and the production team of the Qinhuai Lantern Festival was actually the Zigong team. ”
"(Zigong Lanterns) has a very big advantage." Wu Huanwen, senior engineer of Nanjing Confucius Temple Lantern Art Center, said in an interview with the above media, "We need at least three to four months, and they (the Zigong team) can do it in 20 or 30 days." ”
Folk popular "ten schools of lanterns" saying, Nanjing Qinhuai lanterns and Zigong lanterns are one of them, Zigong local lantern craftsmen said that most of the other schools of lanterns follow the traditional family workshop-style production mode, so it is difficult to compete with the production efficiency of Zigong lanterns, so choose to invite the Zigong team to do lights, there is a saying that "the national lantern festival is Zigong lantern society".
In Zigong, a prefecture-level city with a population of 2.49 million, the lantern industry has become highly industrialized and has become a veritable pillar industry in the local area. Zigong local media reported in 2019 that there are 750 registered lantern enterprises in Zigong, with an annual output value of 5 billion yuan, more than 45,000 employees per year round, and about 100,000 seasonal workers. Zigong lanterns account for 80% of the national market share and account for more than 90% of the international market share.
Combing through the information of Tianyan, it can be seen that focusing on planning and design enterprises, lantern production and sales enterprises, and enterprises that produce lantern materials, these three types of enterprises constitute a huge industrial pyramid of "China Lantern City". In the lantern industry, lantern people with different divisions of labor have different schedules. From March to April, design planners begin to conceive of the following year's lantern festival theme, and in October, lantern craftsmen are gathered and fly like migratory birds to make lanterns.
On the afternoon of January 29, Lei Zhenglin, a lantern craftsman, inspected the light group in the warehouse and prepared to pack the last batch of goods into boxes and transport them to Chongqing.
Lei Zhenglin, 49, is one of these "migratory birds". Lei Zhenglin has been doing lantern festivals in Nanjing for 4 years, and if the progress is fast, his workers can run a few more light fields in a hurry. On October 15 last year, he rushed to Nanjing with a team of more than 190 people to prepare for the Qinhuai Lantern Festival. In addition to the Qinhuai Lantern Festival, they are also responsible for the illumination of some other parks in Nanjing. Construction began on November 20 last year, and it was not until January 25 this year that Lei Zhenglin returned to Zigong.
Approaching the end of the year, it is the hardest time for the "lighters" and the best income. Lei Zhenglin said that the jargon in the industry is called "the first three stations", ordinary front-line fitters, welders, mounting workers, electricians, about 20 days can earn more than 10,000; the artist is the most important role in the lamp-making team, according to the level is divided into "big beauty", "China and the United States" and "small beauty", they directly determine the effect of color lamp molding, a "big beauty" at the end of the year two or three months at least 300,000 yuan.
Of course, they also paid a "price" for it. During the Spring Festival, a day of family reunion, the "lantern guests" and the returned migrant workers formed a diametrically opposed flow route, and Lei Zhenglin did not spend the New Year at home for eight years.
On the afternoon of January 29, at the Lantern Museum, Lei Zhenglin, wearing a red uniform, said that if it were not for the impact of orders due to the epidemic in the past two years, he would still be making lights throughout the country and even around the world during the Spring Festival this year, and now he only needs to send the last light container in the factory to Chongqing, and he can wait for the New Year.
The "Zigong mode" of the assembly line has a very tight schedule. When Lei Zhenglin was rushing to work in other places, he would get up at six or seven o'clock every morning and work until more than ten o'clock in the evening, and there would be a day of "meal day" a week, where workers would buy their own vegetables and cook, hold a party, and take a break. Last year, Lei Zhenglin made lights in Xi'an Datang Furong Garden just in time for the epidemic lockdown, and their park was also completely closed for management, and even the day of extra meals was canceled, "Every day when you open your eyes, only the lights are left." ”
Lei Zhenglin has feelings for lanterns, and this industry has allowed him to end his days of uprooting and have a decent income in his hometown of Zigong. More than a decade ago, he worked in other places, did construction, and sold clothing. Later, his father fell ill with cancer and his mother was paralyzed, and he had to return to his hometown to take care of his parents, and eventually entered the business of lanterns.
"I started with a small job of tucking wire." Lei Zhenglin said, "Fitters, welders, pastors, electricians, and artists all studied conscientiously and became team leaders and workers' captains step by step. Today, Lei Zhenglin and his brother are engaged in the lantern industry.
On the evening of January 29, the 28th Zigong International Dinosaur Lantern Festival "Galaxy Time and Space" theme area, visitors seem to be in the dream galaxy. Beijing News reporter Li Zhao photographed
"Lights" and "lights" across borders
Since December last year, more than 40 groups of Zigong lanterns from China have been lit in The Ritude Park in Blagnac, France, and the lantern exhibition extracts elements of traditional Chinese and French culture, showing the representative architecture, humanities, folklore and science and technology of the two countries.
This is not the first time that Zigong Lantern has gone abroad. As one of the first cities to be awarded the "National Cultural Industry Demonstration Base" and the "National Cultural Export Demonstration Base", Zigong has "lit up" the world since it first held the light exhibition in Singapore in 1990, entering more than 80 countries and regions, and the cumulative number of lantern viewers has exceeded 500 million.
According to media reports, during the Spring Festival this year, Zigong also set up 25 lantern festivals in France, the Netherlands, the United States, Canada, Japan and other places.
For Zigong lanterns, overseas "business trips" are a very common experience. Wan Songtao's birthday was at the end of the year, and he spent several years in a foreign country. He had been a lampmaker in Vietnam for three consecutive years, and in Ho Chi Minh City for two or three months, Wan Songtao even learned some simple Vietnamese.
One year, he took a small train from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi alone, and simply communicated with the locals in Vietnamese, "they could even hear my Vietnamese with a southern accent (Ho Chi Minh City is in South Vietnam)".
Later lamplighters were free of the pressure of language. Lei Zhenglin took out his mobile phone and clicked on a language translation software APP, "In recent years, to Saudi Arabia, the United States, and the United Kingdom, they have all relied on a mobile phone to go to the world."
On the evening of January 29, the panoramic view of the 28th Zigong International Dinosaur Lantern Festival was overlooked from above. Beijing News reporter Li Zhao photographed
Due to the impact of the epidemic, going abroad is restricted, some time ago Lei Zhenglin opened a "video online class" to foreign customers, they transported the lamp group overseas through a large container, and then taught local workers to assemble it by video.
Li Weiwei feels that the Zigong lantern will be able to "go out" efficiently and the influence of the old industrial era of Zigong is not unrelated.
In 2008, the Zigong Lantern Society declared itself a national intangible cultural heritage and was included in the second batch of national intangible cultural heritage list announced by the State Council. However, the non-hereditary people of Zigong Lantern are only municipal non-hereditary people like Wan Songtao, because the declaration conditions for provincial non-hereditary people require at least three generations of family practitioners, which is very rare in Zigong. "Most of the national intangible cultural heritage flower lanterns are three generations and one vein, relying on the family generations to pass down," Li Weiwei told the Beijing News reporter, "Zigong lanterns are not like other intangible cultural heritage flower lanterns have the term 'human to human'.""
But "the existing model is also a good thing for Zigong", Wan Songtao believes that there is no "old" to keep, naturally more bold innovation, more able to break through the rules. In the early days, Zigong lamps were made of clay plastic fiberglass, and later learned taiwan flower lanterns and Chaozhou flower lamps to be tied with bamboo, but this practice was not retained for a long time, so it was originally changed to wire welding.
One year, Wan Songtao was making lamps in Lyon, France, and the French were amazed by the zigong lantern making skills, and it was difficult to imagine the form of the lampstand made of wire, but the other party also pointed out that chinese lanterns lacked expression in light and music.
"There are light festivals abroad, which are presented with modern installation sculptures, music, art and other methods." Wan Songtao said, "This is a process of learning together, we communicate with foreign lighting artists, and then introduce them to domestic lantern festivals." ”
Zigong lanterns have become a business card to show traditional Chinese culture, telling the story of China to the world, not only a simple straight ball output, Li Weiwei is deeply touched. Every time he goes to a place to make a lamp, he has to learn to understand the local culture and history, customs and customs, "there are more places to make lamps, and we have slowly become miscellaneous families." “
The theme area of "Impressions of Yandu" creates an immersive salt culture experience scene, and the light group presents the image of the most representative of the spiritual culture of Yandu, such as Meize chasing deer and shepherding salt spring. Beijing News reporter Li Zhao photographed
"Many people have a misunderstanding that the lights for China to go out are only seen by overseas Chinese. In fact, this is not the case, the Zigong lantern team will also customize the lanterns according to the needs of foreigners according to foreign festivals, such as Christmas or other local folk festivals, and even participate in foreign light festivals. Dai Yanling, director of the China Lantern Museum, told the Beijing News that he had been in charge of finance and enterprise exports in the Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism, and in terms of project approval, he proposed that the lamp group that purely shows traditional Chinese culture should not exceed too high a proportion, and should use Chinese lantern technology to show multiple themes.
Dai Yanling has his own thinking, "Let foreigners see that the original Chinese craftsmen can make their things so beautiful, he will recognize your craftsmanship, and then recognize The traditional Chinese culture." "Telling the beautiful story of the world in the Chinese language is also using an international perspective to see Chinese culture."
"As long as it has emotional resonance with people, as long as it is shiny, as long as it is soulful, there is a 'lamp' and a 'light' at night." Li Weiwei said.
Beijing News reporter Li Zhao intern Wu Yuqiong editor Yuan Guoli
Video producer Qi Houlei Proofreader Liu Yue