Text‖ Li Quncheng Picture ‖ Internet
In the early winter of 1969, my cousin, who was nearly half a hundred years old, knew that I could weave a gourd, so he walked eight or nine miles to our house and asked me to weave one for him. My cousin didn't open his mouth easily, so I naturally agreed immediately. It was not long before I left my hometown as a soldier, and by the time I returned home to visit my family in my fourth year of service, he had already died. Therefore, I failed to fulfill my promise to his old man.
Speaking of which I can weave gourds, although it is a small matter, there is really a story to tell you. (If you want to see what the author of this article, Mr. Li Quncheng, wrote last time, please click the following link: Luhua Chicken: Although more than 60 years have passed, every time I think of that fight scene, it is still amazing)
In 1966, I was still studying at Xuchang County Middle School. I went back to school after the wheat harvest holiday in early June, and after the special period, because the middle school was a county-run middle school, most of the students were from rural areas. After the Spring Festival in 1967, the school was closed, and most of the students went home to work.
Baskets, dung baskets, baskets, and wattle rakes (plugs at both ends of rack carts) that were commonly used by farmers in those days were sold in the bazaar. However, because rural areas are generally poor, many families cannot afford them. Brother Guoan and Brother Songcan of my own family took the lead in teaching themselves to weave baskets, wattle baskets, etc., and Brother Changshan (Chen) of my family's western neighbor began to learn to weave straw hat rings. Seeing that they were all learning to weave baskets and baskets on their own, I also began to wonder what I should learn to weave.
It just so happened that when my grandfather was alive, I don't know when he made it out of elm strips, and he also used a fist-sized gourd with tung oil, which was not only beautiful and strong, but also very practical. So, I came up with the idea of teaching myself how to weave gourds.
Because there were very few entertainment activities in rural areas at that time, even if the county film team went to the countryside to show movies, a village might not be able to take a turn once a month or two. There are no entertainment programs, and many people, especially the elderly, like to raise grasshoppers, and I am naturally no exception.
Now that you have an idea, you naturally do what you say. On a hot summer day, I went to the ditch south of our house to cut elm strips. When my uncle saw and learned of my idea, he told me that the elm trees were in full bloom in the summer, and the strips were too brittle to weave anything. Only after the frost falls, the elm strips will become soft, and it is suitable for weaving gourds and gourds.
I waited patiently until after a few autumn rains, the leaves on the trees gradually turned yellow under the urging of the cold wind, and finally fell to the ground reluctantly, except for a few residual leaves, like freshly weaned children, still stuck to the branches and refused to leave. The elm strips also became soft under the devastation of the frost, and it was a good time for us to cut the strips and weave objects.
I ran to the head of the ditch and cut thin elm strips, and compared them with the gourd made by my grandfather, bottoming, weaving, receiving, dividing, making hoops, closing, etc.
Because it is self-taught to draw a scoop than a gourd, the first gourd that has been compiled is not only crooked, but also soft, and happened to be touched by the accountant (Chen) Uncle Tuqin in the team. He laughed at me and said, "Look at the gourd you weave is the same as baked persimmons," he said, picking it up and pinching it flat with his hand. Although it is not a good one, it is also the first gourd that I taught myself to weave, and I was really sad for a while to see him pinch me flat. However, his ridicule instead urged me to make up my mind to make up the gourd.
Since then, I have carefully analyzed every detail and step of weaving the gourd, and pondered how to make it better. Through constantly summing up lessons and lessons, I finally slowly figured out where to tighten hard, where to continue and divide shares, where to close, and so on. Later, the gourd I made was really as strong and beautiful as my grandfather's. In winter, I put the gourd I made under my arm, listening to the cry of the grasshopper "Di Di", and my heart was naturally beautiful. When many people in the village found out, they also began to find me and asked me to weave gourds for them.
Later, like Guoan and Brother Songcan, I also learned to weave baskets, thorn baskets, and thorn rakes.
The procedure for weaving baskets, wattle baskets, and wattle rakes is similar to that of weaving gourds, except that the wattle strips used are much thicker than the elm strips used to weave gourds, and it is more laborious to weave. But there are no wild wattles in the village, so I can only make up my mind in the second team's wattle garden.
One day after dinner, the moon hung leisurely in the air like a sickle, and the sky seemed to be bright and dark. Since it was the late autumn season, there was basically no work in the fields, and the adults ran to the livestock house after dinner to rub the warmth and go to the mountains, and few people came out to walk around. I picked up the sickle and went to the second team's thorn garden alone, ready to cut a little thorn and go home, so that I could make a pair of thorn rakes.
I had just cut a few sticks when I suddenly saw a man with a flashlight shining at me outside the earthen wall not far away. I thought it was a cadre from the second team who came to inspect, so I squatted and didn't dare to move. The person with the flashlight looked at it for a while, and suddenly asked, "Is it a group?" As soon as I heard Brother Songcan's voice, I realized that he, like me, was here to carry out a "secret mission", so I put my heart down. Brother Songcan also quickly jumped into the wattle garden and cut the wattle with me.
When I got home, I put the cut wattle for a few more days before I made a pair of wattle rakes and put them on the rack cart to work very well. More than ten years later, I went back to my hometown to visit relatives, and my family was still using the thorn rake I made.
Eventually, I learned how to weave straw hat rings. Weaving straw hat rings is not the same as weaving baskets, baskets, and wattle rakes, and it requires some skill.
Before weaving a straw hat ring, you should first choose a slightly thicker bamboo pole, break it into a bamboo stick with a width of more than 1 cm, and scrape off the part of the inner layer. After scraping, the bamboo batch is soaked in water for a day, and when it is slightly softer, use a knife to open a few openings at one end, and then slowly break it to the side with your hand along the tenacity of the bamboo batch, and the bamboo batch will rely on its own hardness, and slowly crack one by one. After all the bamboo batches are ready, you can weave them into a large circle one by one, and then put them on the inside of the straw hat to fix them. The straw hat rings made of bamboo are both strong and durable, and are very popular with everyone.
Time flies by like a white horse, fleeting. In the blink of an eye, these were more than fifty years ago, especially when I failed to weave a gourd for my cousin, I always felt guilty in my heart: I owe my cousin a gourd.
March 2024 in Hainan
Li Quncheng is a member of the Chinese Calligraphers Association, a member of the Chinese Poetry Society, a member of the Chinese Couplet Society, a member of the Henan Artists Association, and a member of the Henan Writers Association. Calligraphy and art works have been selected for many exhibitions (award-winning) exhibitions of the China Calligraphy Association and the Henan Association. He has published more than 180 essays, art theories, reviews, and essays of more than 400,000 words, and hundreds of poems (couplets) in newspapers, magazines and the Internet. He has published "Li Quncheng's Calligraphy Collection", "The Rise of the Central Plains - Chinese Contemporary Calligraphy Master Li Quncheng", "Spring Recitation and Autumn Yin: Li Quncheng's Poetry Couplet", "Fertile Yizhen - Li Quncheng's Poetry Collection" and "Dusty Years".
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