Author Ma Jinjiang
Masons are simply builders who are engaged in bricklaying and tile building. Some places are called "bricklayers" and some places are called "plasterers".
The mason's grandfather was Lu Ban (Lu Ban is the ancestor of the five industries of tile, wood, stone, rope, and shed). Its history is at least 3000 years. Masons have historically been called "u", or "dirt workers". Han Yu, a great writer of the Tang Dynasty, once wrote a biography for a mason named Wang Chengfu, whose name was "The Biography of Wang Chengfu the Yuan".
Masons are a technical job. Its techniques are passed down from master to apprentice or from father to son. The most basic technical requirement for masons is horizontal and vertical. The so-called horizontal flatness means that the wall is "not straight seamed by lamination stubble, and the mud (ash) mouth is evenly level", the so-called vertical, that is, "the wall is nine feet high and not crooked, and a straight line is like a knife cut". There is also a requirement to wipe the wall: "The wall is as flat as a mirror, and the body is not covered with mud."
In the past, masons in the countryside often formed a construction team of more than a dozen people, and Zao Qiang called it "dialing gang", which means a group of people. The person in charge of the group is called "Master Fu", that is, the captain and foreman. Master Fu is not only the boss of technology, but also the external liaison, or the manager of the allocation, the distribution of wages. In addition, he also understands many of the feng shui taboos of building houses. Therefore, it is very trusted and respected by people.
Masons build houses with craftsmanship, and packages are clearing workers. Building materials are all provided by the owner, in the past the countryside was poor, most of the buildings were adobe houses; slightly better cover half-billet and half-brick "front flower face after hanging bricks". With the development of the economy and the improvement of living standards, the structure of houses has also changed, and later brick and tile houses have been built in both urban and rural areas. Masons continue to learn new crafts as the situation develops, such as: how to cement with sand? How to bend the rebar? How to pour ring beams and other technologies.
The masons 's glory days were from the 1980s to the 1990s. Reform and opening up have brought about economic development and the prosperity of the people's lives, and urban and rural areas have begun to improve the conditions for "living". Families want to build red brick tile houses, the construction partners are too busy to come, the people who build houses have to queue up, and the masters and masons have made a fortune for several years.
Entering the new century, masons began to decline. Due to the hollowing out of the countryside, no one has built new houses. Due to real estate development, the city is built with reinforced concrete buildings. Faced with the new situation, most of the young masons joined the army of high-rise buildings. A few rural building masons with brick knives are still "active" in the countryside: repairing the roof and changing the tiles for the house; giving the wall of the courtyard and the bricks. Do some bits and pieces, earn some bits and pieces. They did not leave the people, because the countryside needed them and could not do without them.