Editor's note: On the occasion of Labor Day, the Xuhui District Rong Media Center has created a series of reports on "Glorious Labor and Sustainable Ingenuity", focusing on the struggle and outstanding contributions of six outstanding craftsmen and model workers. With their ingenuity and dedication to innovation, they vividly interpret the professionalism and responsibility of workers in the new era, and show the outstanding demeanor of workers in Xuhui District and even the whole country. From this unique perspective, Xuhui District Rong Media Center pays tribute to every worker who works hard for a better life.
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Every Tuesday afternoon, an elective class of boxwood carving will be held on time in the classroom of Xuhui District Industrial Technology School, and the teacher is Chen Huaming, the 80-year-old representative inheritor of "Shanghai boxwood carving". The age difference of more than 60 years does not bring a barrier to communication between teachers and students, and this course is particularly popular.
"When I first came into contact with the art of boxwood carving, I was about the same age as them. Chen Huaming looked at the group of students and said with a smile. In 1961, Chen Huaming was admitted to the Shanghai Arts and Crafts School boxwood carving major, and studied under Xu Baoqing, the founder of "Shanghai School Boxwood Carving", and his disciple Lin Yi. "Shanghai boxwood carving" integrates the traditional folk carving skills and Western sketching techniques, emphasizing the integrity of the work, a work needs to go through more than ten processes such as conception, rough production, fine carving hairlines, etc.
Like the students in the classroom, Chen Huaming's initial contact with boxwood carving began with basic skills such as sketching, clay sculpture, and ginkgo wood carving. Due to the complicated boxwood carving process and the difficulty in cultivating talents, since the 90s of the last century, boxwood carving has also faced the dilemma of no successor.
"My teacher gave me this technique, and I will pass it on, and this beautiful thing cannot be broken with me. Although he is in his old age, Chen Huaming is still busy between school and studio, and he has a schedule that he can't shake when he goes to school on Tuesdays to teach students and on Saturdays when he teaches enthusiasts in the studio. Up to now, nearly 10,000 people have participated in the learning and experience of boxwood carving in Changqiao Street alone. In addition to teaching and carrying out boxwood carving publicity activities, Chen Huaming still maintains the habit of carving every day, and works such as "Evergreen Guiding the Way" and "Children's Dream" have entered the exhibition hall of the China International Import Expo.
"A carver's work is inseparable from his experience, now boxwood carving to have a fresh theme, to have a dynamic creation, is in great need of young people, like students do a little creative modeling when they are in class, I am very supportive, for there is a source of living water. Chen Huaming said.
Coincidentally, in Changqiao Street, there is also an intangible cultural heritage inheritor and lively and lovely young students, telling their stories with Jiangnan silk and bamboo.
In 2010, Changqiao No. 2 Kindergarten, Xuhui District Education College Affiliated Experimental Primary School, and Changqiao No. 3 Kindergarten successively established silk and bamboo campus learning points for dulcimer, erhu, and ruan. In 2014, the Jiangnan Silk and Bamboo Learning Base attached to Xu Education Institute was rated as one of the "Top Ten Learning Bases for the Study of Excellent Traditional Chinese Culture and Intangible Cultural Heritage on Campus in Shanghai" by the Shanghai Municipal Education Commission. In 2015, Shanghai's first Jiangnan Silk and Bamboo Exhibition Hall was officially opened in the primary school transmission base attached to Xujiao Institute. Zhou Feng, the representative inheritor of "Jiangnan Silk and Bamboo" at the municipal level, can be said to have witnessed the establishment and development of the campus learning point step by step.
"The harmony between people and between people and nature is the most important meaning of Jiangnan silk and bamboo culture, and it is also the essence of traditional Chinese culture. Now we want to continue to pass on this kind of musical beauty to the next generation. Zhou Feng told reporters.
As a representative inheritor at the municipal level, Zhou Feng can be said to wear many hats. In 2003, the "Changqiao National Band", which was founded in 1939, was renamed "Changqiao Shenyun Silk and Bamboo Band".
Zhou Feng also collected and sorted out the literature and archives related to silk and bamboo, recorded a series of highlights of folk silk and bamboo 1-28 episodes, and wrote and published more than ten articles related to Jiangnan silk and bamboo.
Chen Huaming and Zhou Feng, the two inheritors of intangible cultural heritage, are no longer young, but their unremitting efforts in their respective fields have never dissipated the vitality of the workers from their lives, and their spirit of perseverance for love has also inspired the successors to continue to inherit and protect the intangible cultural heritage.
Reporter: Shen Yifei, Xiao Lexin
Video: Zhu Wenzhe
Some images courtesy of Longbridge Street
Editor: Qiu Caihong
Reviewer: Wei Li