In the Douyin live broadcast room, fans were enthusiastic, and the girl answered while weaving bamboo baskets, only to see the bamboo fences flying up and down, gently scratching her fingertips, closely arranged together, just right.
She is Liu Xiabing, the daughter of "Lingshan Bamboo Weaving", who single-handedly saved the intangible cultural heritage craft - bamboo weaving on the verge of life and death, integrating it into the concept of the new era and giving it new vitality.
With the development of the times, people no longer need a bamboo woven bucket hat, but they very much need a bamboo woven cat litter, so that cats can live in a pure natural "home" in a concrete city, which is the wish of many cat lovers.
As a result, Liu Xiabing and her bamboo weaving cat nest became popular on the Internet, from a debt of 2 million yuan to a daily sales of tens of thousands of yuan, bringing several generations of craftsmen alive, inheriting the craftsmanship of the ancestors, and letting more people know about intangible cultural heritage bamboo weaving.
How did she do it?
Let's walk into this girl's bamboo weaving life together and experience the ups and downs of her life.
Liu Xiabing, 31 years old, is in Pingyuan Town, Lingshan County, Qinzhou, Guangxi, a county town inherited from "Lingshan bamboo weaving", where bamboo weaving was once famous and exported overseas.
When she was a child, her favorite thing to see was the bamboo fence that her father flipped on his fingertips, and even her stationery box was a bamboo product woven by her father.
Her father began to learn bamboo weaving at the age of 10, and opened a bamboo weaving factory in 1980, doing foreign trade wholesale business, all kinds of bamboo weaving products, because of its low cost, strong and durable, attracting a large number of buyers.
Liu Xiabing has been eager to learn bamboo weaving from his father since he was a child, but he was blocked by his father again and again, he did not want his daughter to be like him, her hands will always be wounds and calluses, he hopes that her daughter will go out of the mountain village and go to the city to live.
In 2008, orders for bamboo weaving plummeted, the former foreign traders no longer came, and the bamboo weaving factories that had no sales were closed, and only my father was still struggling to hold on.
The father buried his troubles in the weaving day after day, the treasury had long been piled up, and the life of the Liu family gradually fell into trouble.
Liu Xiabing looked at her increasingly thin father, and once again proposed to go home to inherit the craft, but was strictly rejected by her father: "This work is laborious and laborious, and there is no future." ”
In this way, Liu Xiabing went to Guangzhou to work, but she still did not die.
In 2015, Liu Xiabing, who was already the manager of a clothing store, returned home and saw the crazy bamboo growing all over the mountains, and almost no one in the village cut bamboo anymore.
At this moment, she secretly made up her mind in her heart that she would regain her ancestors' bamboo weaving skills and protect the bamboo weaving dream in her heart.
She has to make many, many bamboo weavings and sell them far, far away.
In 2016, Liu Xiabing became the regional supervisor of her company, she established herself in the city, and her parents' full expectations were fulfilled.
However, there is no smile on the parents' faces, and because the bamboo weaving business is declining, their livelihood depends on the subsidies of their children, which is not what they want.
Every day, my father still weaves bamboo baskets and buckets, but it can only make the warehouse more and more crowded.
For this reason, Liu Xiabing saw it in her eyes and worried in her heart, and she put her father's bamboo weave into the online store while working.
Unexpectedly, there was really an order, and 100 flower baskets were sold at once.
Liu Xiabing was ecstatic, and she decided to use the Internet to save her father's bamboo weaving.
Despite her parents' obstruction, she resolutely quit her rising job and returned home to take over her father's bamboo weaving factory.
Under her leadership, the bamboo weaving factory was brought back to life, and at its peak, more than 500 skilled workers and craftsmen from several surrounding villages gathered here.
In 2019, the "Lingshan Bamboo Compilation" was included in the intangible cultural heritage.
At that moment, her dream came true, her proud craftsmanship was recognized, and her father became the inheritor.
But a few years after such days, bamboo weaving once again faced slow sales, and the original wholesalers changed their profession.
Liu Xiabing was unwilling, she reorganized the team and started retailing, but the business was dismal and suffered serious losses.
In 2020, the sudden epidemic even beat her to the bottom, bamboo weaving could not be sold, funds could not be turned, and the loss was close to 2 million yuan.
Her parents advised her many times: "Forget it!" ”
But after all, she can't give up this bamboo weaving relationship, and she has to continue to work hard.
After Liu Xiabing thought about it, she set her eyes back on the network and started the live broadcast of Douyin.
At the beginning, there were few fans in the live broadcast room, she didn't mind, repeatedly introduced her "Lingshan bamboo weaving", bamboo baskets, flower baskets, fruit baskets, woven bags...
However, orders are few and sometimes not open for several days.
Liu Xiabing almost collapsed, and she gritted her teeth every day.
It was her persistence in the dark night, and a trace of moonlight entered her live broadcast room.
On the evening of March 19, 2021, Liu Xiabing's live broadcast room doubled her fans, and they were asking the same question "cat nest".
This seemed to be a term that had nothing to do with her product, and Liu Xiabing was at a loss.
At this time, a fan said: "The fruit basket is a cat nest!" ”
After a while, several fruit baskets were taken away one after another, and they saw the nature of bamboo and wanted their pets to live in "nature".
In this way, she began to talk to fans about the "cat litter", shape, size, bracket...
"No problem, tomorrow night in the live broadcast room on the cat litter."
The next morning, she called her father early and worked with him to conceive the cat litter that fans need.
Although the father did not understand it, he still made the first cat litter with his daughter.
In the live broadcast room at night, the lively and not yet formed cat litter samples were scrambled by fans, and more than 200 pieces were pre-sold at once.
For several days, the number of fans in the live broadcast room soared, and the sales of cat litters suddenly reached several thousand.
Liu Xiabing repeatedly told fans that they would not be able to rush out for a while, and some would not be able to ship until 2 months later.
However, she received only one word to answer, which was "wait".
In this way, Liu Xiabing's "Lingshan Bamboo Weaving" came alive again, and the bamboo weaving cat nest quietly became popular, integrating this ancient skill into modern life and going far, far away.
Some might say it's all luck.
But without Liu Xiabing's hard work, how can I wait for this luck.
There is no light luck in life, only the rise of wind and water after unremitting efforts.
At the suggestion of fans, Liu Xiabing's Douyin has a variety of "nests", dog kennels, hamster dens, rabbit dens...
In order to make it convenient for fans to take their pets out, she also designed trolley cases and breathable backpacks to go out.
Today, her bamboo woven pet utensils have become popular all over the Internet, selling at least more than 100 pieces a day, and selling thousands on the most explosive day.
The craftsmen who used to go out to work returned to Lingshan, picked up the bamboo fences again, and enjoyed their flying at their fingertips, inheriting the livelihood and wisdom of this local area.
Good luck favors those who are prepared, and only when they have the ability will luck be transformed into opportunities.
Liu Xiabing is exactly like this, and I believe that she and her "Lingshan Bamboo Weaving" will go further and further.
Author: ZHL Suiping
Editor: Zhenzhen