Bamboo mats, rattan chairs, and pond baskets...... This year, 63-year-old Li Xueming's family lives in Bixi Street, Changshu City, and when he was more than ten years old, he entered the Xuzhuang Bridge Bamboo Factory to learn weaving with his master, winding, winding, pulling and fixing, and every material and every process was carefully polished and carved. From material selection to finished product, the bamboo is dried, then cut, fire-roasted, sawn, drilled, assembled, sanded, and finally woven. That's more than 40 years.
Among all the crafts, Li Xueming's favorite is rattan chair weaving, his products are durable and beautiful, and are deeply loved by everyone, and many people come to buy them. Walking into his house, you can see woven rattan chair materials and all kinds of rattan chairs everywhere. In the eyes of his friends, Li Xueming is a warm-hearted person, and many neighbors have asked him to repair old rattan chairs, but he doesn't take a penny. At this time, Master Li is baking the sharpened bamboo on the flame back and forth, and when the hard bamboo is soft and ripe, he skillfully bends it, and the shape required for the back of the rattan chair and the skeleton is completed.
Li Xueming introduced that in addition to craftsmanship, the materials used to make rattan chairs are also very particular. The bamboos used to build the frame of the chairs are all planted by hand, which is tough and strong, and is dried for about 1 month, and then dried for storage. The plastic rattan for weaving is also only purchased from manufacturers who have cooperated for many years to ensure quality.
One rattan flew between Master Li's fingers, and the rattan danced and "brushed", bending and interspersed, pressing and picking, and finally became an exquisite rattan chair. Weaving all year round, Master Li's hands are covered with a thick layer of calluses.
To persist in exchange for development, looking forward to the skills of "successors". However, with the development of the economy, the emergence of new materials and new processes, modern new furniture and daily necessities emerge in an endless stream, and bamboo products are gradually "left out" by everyone. Li Xueming said that when he first started, a rattan chair was sold for 2 to 3 yuan, which was economical, so it was very popular with the masses. However, due to the increase in the price of raw materials and labor, it is still impossible to make money by selling one or two hundred yuan now, and the older generation is reluctant to buy it, and the young people do not look down on it. As a result, people who practice this craft have changed careers. Originally, there were more than a dozen brothers and sisters, but now only a few people are left to insist. At the same time, few young people choose to learn, and Changshu bamboo weaving craft is facing the crisis of no successor.
As the saying goes, slow work can produce fine work, and the production of rattan chairs is very hard and long. But Master Li is infatuated with this craft, and he cherishes the traditional craftsmanship left by his ancestors. The old customer's sentence "I only trust what you make" has made him persist in this ingenuity for more than 40 years. Master Li said that he would stick to it no matter what. His greatest wish is that someone is willing to pass it on and jointly protect this folk craft. Therefore, when the Xuhu Village Committee contacted him to hold a lecture on rattan chair weaving and on-site teaching of rattan chair weaving, he agreed without hesitation.
Bamboo weaving products are a traditional culture, a symbol of the diligence and wisdom of the Chinese people, and the spirit of Chinese self-improvement and hard work. For Li Xueming, the bamboo rattan chair used to be a livelihood business, but now it is a kind of feelings and perseverance. The thick cocoon on the palm imprints the traces of the times, making the ingenuity that has been the same for decades more and more precious.
Yangtze Evening News/Purple Cow News reporter Zhang Tianyi
Proofread by Li Haihui