There is such a post-90s guy, he is an intangible cultural heritage "layman", but he will use the endangered phoenix kite to form "Ambilight" with 10,000 feathers and fly into the sky; He is a "foreigner" in a different place, but he traced his apprentice in the depths of Daliang Mountain, and played the thousand-year-old sound of the Yi people - Bafang Yueqin; He is a "white-collar worker" in the city, but he picked up a 30-pound kettle with his bare hands, faced the fear of fire, and waved the shock of starlight...... On August 2, one of his short videos of "The Origin of Football - Chinese Keju" became popular on the Internet again.
10,000 feathers paste the brilliance of the kite
He is the Douyin blogger "Fifty-Seven" from Xinjin, Chengdu - Liu Jiayu. In the past year, he relied on self-study or spontaneously looking for inheritors to study, and reproduced more than 20 Chinese intangible cultural heritage and ancient skills through the short video platform. Different from a simple performance-style display, he personally recorded the whole process from sketching to finding materials, from long production to molding display, which attracted many netizens to watch. Everyone has expressed the emotion of "amazing" and "shocking, it's amazing", and a single short video has received as many as 4.43 million views. How did he practice the "Eighteen Martial Arts"? The reporter met this "strange" person in the rural courtyard of Yulong Village, Baodun Town, Xinjin District, Chengdu.
Liu Jiayu returned to his hometown, Yulong Village, Baodun Town, Xinjin District
The Bafang Yueqin on the verge of being lost
Let him plant the flame of inheriting intangible cultural heritage
Before September last year, Liu Jiayu was still a manager of a trading company, and the trajectory of his life was changed by chance.
In July 2023, when he was experiencing the Yi Torch Festival in Daliang Mountain, he inadvertently walked into a small shop in Zhaojue County and was greeted by three exquisite but unfamiliar musical instruments. These three musical instruments are neither pipa nor ruan, Liu Jiayu immediately became interested, and asked the store to learn that it was the traditional instrument of the Yi nationality - Bafang Yueqin.
The finished Bafang Moon Qin
The Bafang Yueqin has been stored in the store, and no one has cared about it for two or three years, and it has been covered with dust. The local old man told Liu Jiayu that this may be the last three Bafang Yueqin to circulate, and no one knows how to make it now. Liu Jiayu took the initiative to contact the production master in Xichang City, but the reply was that the 80-year-old man was seriously ill and it was difficult to pick up the production tools.
Liu Jiayu, who was unwilling to give up, traveled in many ways, and finally found a teacher in Meigu County who knew how to make the Bafang Yueqin. How to spread the skills left by our ancestors? How to empower the practicality and brand of intangible cultural heritage? Liu Jiayu began his own practice.
Liu Jiayu learned the production of the Bafang Yueqin from the teacher Axi of Meigu County
Liu Jiayu recalled that he used to learn the Bafang Yueqin in the mountains and did not drive away until 11 p.m. The mountain road was rugged, the torrential rain continued, and the car body kept slipping on the edge of the cliff, and the group had to wait for dawn on the side of the deserted mountain road. And some of the materials needed to make the Bafang Yueqin have to wait for a year.
Subsequently, the production video of Bafang Yueqin was launched, and the video duration was only 5 minutes and 23 seconds, but the emotion brought to Liu Jiayu was incomparable.
Liu Jiayu played the local traditional musical instrument - Bafang Yueqin in Daliang Mountain
"This fire-worshipping nation has made me full of interest in traditional culture, especially intangible cultural heritage, and I feel that I should record it and carry it forward." Liu Jiayu communicated his thoughts to his father, who worked in the media. "Do you know what a legacy is?" His father's words triggered him to think deeply.
With the idea of reproducing and disseminating intangible cultural heritage skills and ancient crafts, he resolutely resigned from his job in a trading company, recruited three like-minded partners, and registered the account "Fifty-Seven" on Douyin to start producing intangible cultural heritage videos. The reason for the name "Fifty-Seven", Liu Jiayu's explanation is that it represents fifty-six nationalities and an unknown possibility. He said that there are more possibilities for the inheritance of traditional Chinese culture in the future, and it is the responsibility of young people from generation to generation to make it glow with new vitality.
How hard do you fight to promote your skills?
He learns more than 20 traditional skills in a year
For Liu Jiayu, it was with a passion that he began to try to learn the art, and after experiencing it firsthand, he realized that inheritance itself is necessary and urgent.
In the process of video production, the loss of intangible cultural heritage craftsmanship is a major challenge for Liu Jiayu.
Feather kite is a thousand-year-old stunt, which can restore the posture of the phoenix soaring for nine days and running through the rainbow. And this craft is facing loss with the death of the last inheritor, "Jiangnan Kite King" Zhang Zhigang.
In order to replicate the feather kite, Liu Jiayu consulted a large number of materials and asked a professional kite teacher to guide him. The teacher's reply was: "Without ten years of foundation for making kites, it can't be completed at all." I thought that these words would hit Liu Jiayu's momentum, but he didn't give up.
The skeleton of a feather kite is extremely demanding, not only supportive, but also light and symmetrical. In the process of tying the skeleton with bamboo strips, it is common for Liu Jiayu's hands to be scratched by bamboo, and then pasting feathers is even more time-consuming and laborious.
Liu Jiayu is using bamboo strips to make a phoenix feather kite skeleton
"The Vermilion Bird of the Quartet Heaven and Earth is watching the red dreams of the Chinese people." In Liu Jiayu's view, the red phoenix is the spiritual totem of the Chinese people, and the pride and imagination of traditional culture, so he decided to create a red phoenix feather kite. "For the feathers of the Vermilion Bird to shine, the color of the fur must be graded. Just to distinguish the feathers according to the shade of color, I chose a few days and nights. In addition, Liu Jiayu said, the size and type of feathers should be distributed according to their growth characteristics. He joked that he restocked the feathers online five or six times before and after making them, "and the sellers were all bought out." "It took 13 days to paste these tens of thousands of feathers.
Then assembled, debugged, and finally the effort paid off, and the flight test was successful, which took a month and a half. When the phoenix kite rises to the wind and soars into the sky, Liu Jiayu said: "The phoenix will eventually be reborn." From scratch, I don't know how to fly a kite, and now I have mastered how to make feather kites. ”
Finished phoenix feather kite
After the release of this video, it attracted 87,000 likes from netizens, and its reproduction of the inheritance of intangible cultural heritage skills touched countless people. "The kite string is broken, how can I fly back?" This is a highly praised message from netizens under Liu Jiayu's video. "So the line won't be broken in the future, and there are many teachers who have stepped up." This is Liu Jiayu's reply, and it is also his choice and responsibility.
The year of learning and inheriting intangible cultural heritage, Liu Jiayu said that it was more wonderful than his past 20 years. He often had to learn multiple skills in a single day.
His video is heartwarming, telling the whole process of his intangible cultural heritage skills from ignorance to successful production, and at the same time interspersed with the introduction of the historical and cultural connotations of ancient crafts: he used a box of ancient citrus balm to pry open the romance of the Chinese, and the fragrance was filled with the ambition of the people of the southern country to "be independent and not moved", and also contained the long thoughts of the night rain in Bashan; In the turbulent years of his family and country, Shuiyue Guanyin was cut and stolen, he used the soil of the Chinese land to reshape the flesh and blood of Shuiyue Guanyin, and in one polishing process after another, he concretely showed the pain of Shuiyue Guanyin being exiled overseas......
Handmade Suigetsu Kannon
On his hands, the reporter noticed scars. Liu Jiayu said: "I clearly remember which skill each injury was left by, and for me, this is my honor and my medal as a craftsman." ”
Integrate into the big stage of rural revitalization
He insisted on the "stubbornness" of slow work and meticulous work
Fast-paced short videos flood the Internet, and his videos can't be updated as efficiently as other bloggers, and many fans regret that there are fewer videos in the comment section, but it has been his unremitting efforts for a year, from the office building to the mountains and fields.
"Many people think that handicrafts can be replaced by mass production, and it is very simple for the short video industry to make quick money. But after all, there are some things that cannot be replaced, handmade products are handmade products, and temperature cannot be replaced. Liu Jiayu firmly believes this.
Liu's videos usually take dozens of days to complete. Long production cycles mean low production frequency. He put a lot of effort into producing a three- or four-minute video. However, most viewers are usually only willing to give a 15-second pause to an unfamiliar blogger. A long period of time means low exposure.
Although they have expectations and ideals for intangible cultural heritage, after a year of hands-on practice, Liu Jiayu's team has to face the practical dilemma of making profits. The lack of revenue from self-media is difficult to support the operation of the team, but if you blindly pursue traffic monetization, it will affect the video content.
Does video content have to be compromised to keep the team afloat? Liu Jiayu gave a negative answer, he returned to his hometown Xinjin, received relevant support and training from the government, and gradually began to undertake some tasks of shooting and editing promotional videos for agriculture, culture and tourism, and maintained the basic survival of the team. He also became one of the "Top Ten Hemei Rural Partners", joined the Rural Revitalization Leading Goose Program, and provided help from Baodun Town, Xinjin District, Chengdu City, to find a small courtyard in Yulong Village for him to settle down.
Liu Jiayu is located in the small courtyard of Yulong Village, Baodun Town, Xinjin District
Photo by Li Siyu
Liu Jiayu not only explores more possibilities of the countryside in the rural courtyard, but also insists on learning intangible cultural heritage skills in the courtyard, and shows his youthful demeanor on the stage of rural revitalization as a "new farmer".
Liu Jiayu said that he does not regret his choice, and he is willing to let time precipitate his love. He firmly believes that intangible cultural heritage will eventually be seen, understood and passed on by more people. He said that many craftsmen just stick to it silently all their lives, not seeking to be heard, just for one thing. He hopes that his perseverance can become a window for more people to get a glimpse of the treasures of traditional Chinese culture and inspire the younger generation to inherit the inheritance.