Handicraft has fun, gifts have friendship.
Text/Yi Wanyu
Editor/Jiang Xuefen
Chen Zhifan once said in "Cambridge Reflection": "Many, many histories can cultivate a little bit of tradition, and many, many traditions can cultivate a little bit of culture." “
Lin Changan is a native of Chaoshan, a post-90s girl, who has reproduced more than 150 antique gifts in seven years. She is inspired by museums, ancient poems, and even some blurry paintings or pictures...... Some gifts have well-known names, while others have long been lost in history.
Intangible cultural heritage bamboo-woven oil paper lamp, inlaid silver bookmark, imitation dotted emerald brooch...... These items, which once flashed in the long river of history, but gradually fell silent, are gradually loved by more young people because of the retro resurgence. In the era of efficiency and finished products, some people still choose to buy material kits, follow the tutorial to learn, and reproduce a special and precious gift.
Lin Changan started a business because of his interest. Her intangible cultural heritage gift material package is unique, relying on original tutorials and aesthetics, attracting about 100,000 people to place orders to try. Contrary to most people's impression that "it is difficult to start an intangible cultural heritage business", the store's first product "Linglong dice" has good sales. She resigned because of this product, which was popular at the beginning, and made this store with a golden crown today, and also bought a building in her hometown.
"Exquisite Dice Ann Red Bean"
(Jieyang's national intangible cultural heritage, Qiaolin fireworks and fire dragon scene)
Lin Changan was born in Jieyang, Guangdong. The Chaoshan area has a strong cultural atmosphere, and the towns established since the Ming and Qing dynasties have allowed the community to continue the living mode of combining communities to this day, and the ancient cultural customs and crafts have also had a space and carrier for inheritance.
Lin Changan has liked ancient poetry since he was a child, but he majored in e-commerce in college, and his interest can only be used as a hobby in his spare time. When she was about to graduate in 2017, she went to an internship at an e-commerce company specializing in food in Shenzhen, with a "monthly salary of 5,000 yuan, and five people crammed into a dormitory". In Lin Changan's view, the prosperity of Shenzhen is far away from her, and there is nowhere to put the ancient poems she loved in the past, "after all, only with money can you enjoy life and do what you like."
(Lin Chang'an)
In the year of graduation, because of the ancient poem "Linglong Dice An Red Bean", she wanted to reproduce "Linglong dice". Maybe it's really some talent, she has no teacher of this kind of handicraft, "I figured out the method in a day or two". Because she was still interning at the time, there was no way to make finished products one by one, so she came up with the idea of making tutorials and selling material kits.
Lin Changan opened his own online store when he was in college, initially to complete his homework, and later helped others to make some extra money by doing poster design. In 2017, she designed the material package of "Linglong Dice", and it didn't take long for her to get orders on the shelves.
In the beginning, she only picked materials after work and packed them for delivery, and occasionally provided guidance when customers encountered problems, without delaying her daily work. But it may be because the poem is becoming more and more popular, and the people who buy it continue to post pictures on the Internet, and there are more and more customers who come to admire it.
"Exquisite dice and red beans, I don't know if I am lovesick to the bones. The strong love that Wen Tingyun can't let go of in this poem will definitely be ridiculed as a "love brain" now, causing people's toes to buckle the ground and their scalps to tingle. But five or six years ago, complaining to each other did not lead to embarrassment, and the handiwork that the "pure love warriors" painstakingly did was a representation of full friendship.
In Lin Changan's opinion, she caught up with the best start. The east wind of the short video makes ordinary viewers also feel close to the ancient gifts, "We don't need to do publicity, and some people spontaneously search for keywords to enter the store." And when it comes to holidays, she is so busy that she "hits the back of her head", works overtime to pick materials, pack and ship, and can only sleep four hours a day.
I bought a building by relying on the material package business
When she resigned and returned to her hometown, Lin Changan's parents thought that she came back after she "couldn't get along" in Shenzhen, but in fact, she could sell thousands of orders a month with just one product.
After that, Lin Changan reproduced many ancient gifts, and exploring the production process was like solving a mystery or making a dish. There are some challenges in things, and they are just within the boundaries of her ability, and there is always a feeling that problems can always be overcome, which makes it easy for people to enter a state of "flow".
Being able to do what he likes and being able to realize it is what Lin Changan feels the happiest. Work has never been a pressure for her, "but a pleasure". Over the years, she has reproduced more than 150 products, but considering the difficulty of making them by hand and the cost of material kits, only thirty or forty of them have been linked.
In less than two years after starting his business, Lin Chang'an has more wholesale customers, most of whom are staff of enterprises or schools, and there may be thousands of orders at a time. "Most of these customers need to master the production steps themselves before they can teach them to others at the event," says "so store tutorials are particularly important. For this reason, Lin Chang Tsai carefully recorded many versions of handmade tutorials, and repeatedly advised, "Handicraft is difficult to do, if you don't understand anything, you must leave a message and ask me!"
Relying on meticulousness and sincerity, Lin Changan has a large number of repeat customers, and 100,000 people have come into contact with this kind of intangible cultural heritage gifts through her. At the end of 2018, this Chaoshan girl bought a building in her hometown. Dozens of rooms were set for her to shoot, "both as a house, a shooting room, and as well as my warehouse".
The good business brought by the realization of interest makes this Chaoshan girl very proud. During the Spring Festival of 2019, she took her family to Beijing for a trip. The atmosphere of the Spring Festival is strong, "as soon as I go back to the hotel, there are thousands of more orders in my mobile phone, and there can be tens of thousands of orders in a month."
And the most rewarding thing for so many years is that she has found the lost "green grate fan". This is a popular fan type in the Song Dynasty, the fan surface is based on a thin wooden pole as the axis, and the two sides of the wooden pole are made of finely arranged bamboo strips as the bone, and then mounted with silk or paper. Because of the material used and shaped like a grate used to comb hair, it was named "green grate fan", and it was a treasure that could only be used by nobles at that time.
(Lin Chang'an's replica of the green grate fan)
This lost luxury, Lin Chang'an reproduced. But she thought about it, "The material package alone costs four or five hundred yuan, and it needs to use seven or eight hundred bamboo strips, which is too troublesome to do, and few customers should be interested", so she had to entertain herself.
It's also fun to admit defeat
At present, the most popular products in the store are bamboo weaving products. As this intangible cultural heritage skill has gradually been valued, large orders from individuals and units have gradually increased, and "sometimes one customer can buy thousands".
Her first bamboo weaving product was a bamboo weaving oil paper lantern in the Chaoshan area. Lighting lamps and praying for blessings is an ancient symbol of traditional folk customs for people to pray for a better life. On the fourth day of the first lunar month, when the "lord falls into the sky" in the Chaoshan dialect, the local people still retain the habit of lighting lamps in the temple to pray for a bumper harvest and a safe environment. In the Chaoshan dialect, because "lamp" and "ding", "bamboo" and "de" have the same sound, the bamboo oil-paper lantern also represents the prosperity of wealth and the longevity of virtue.
As an intangible cultural heritage, bamboo weaving is actually more complicated, "it is not something that can be made by looking at the steps, but it needs to be practiced continuously to find the feel." In the material package prepared by Lin Changan, more than a dozen materials were included. This small lantern contains two production processes, "bamboo weaving" and "lantern", a total of 56 steps, although Lin Changan can weave it in ten minutes, but most customers have to spend a day or two.
Moreover, in the production process of bamboo weaving, it is necessary to keep the bamboo strips moist all the time, especially when closing, if it is too dry, the material is easy to break. However, the winter in the north is particularly dry, and many customers are not fast enough, and the bamboo strips are dried out before they are finished, and they need to soak in water again, which also takes a lot of time.
In the comment area, the customers who have successfully made the finished product are full of excitement between the lines. Some people stayed up for two nights to make oil-paper lanterns, "but it's a pity that the writing was crooked"; some people went to the last step, but they didn't expect that "the bamboo strips were confiscated at the end and exploded directly"; and some people were repeatedly defeated, "or leave it to their wives to fight"......
But there are also many people who have had fun by admitting defeat. For example, novices who can't do it at the first step, "I can't weave a lantern, let's make a bamboo mat for myself", and some people originally wanted to weave bamboo bells, but how do they look like a badminton...... However, most people only seek completion, not perfection, and the handicraft itself should be relaxed and happy.
Occasionally looking through the comment area, it is also a blind life adjustment for Lin Changan. Her work and life are not very separate, and all kinds of life can be her source of inspiration. In addition to the most popular bamboo weaving, her shop also has all kinds of imitation jade jewelry, making jewelry is also a test of care and patience of the craft, a holiday, many people place orders to buy, as a gift to express a friendship.
Last year, Lin Changan designed a bamboo fan as a new product, and it was actually past summer when it was put on the shelves, but more than 20,000 sets were still sold. After the Qingming Festival, the spring breeze gradually warmed, and she expected that bamboo fans and windmills would become new hot sellers.