The Old Saramae Three Kingdoms Chronicles smuggled rare animals
Welcome to the public number [Sasu] (sasutime)
"You are a tortoiseshell, although it is a small tortoiseshell, you certainly can't take it with you." Lao Fang said with a blank stare, "This is an international rare protected animal, you take it through customs... Oh,, people can use smuggling to take you down! ”
Lao Fang was saying this to Lao Sa on the street in Santo Domingo, the capital of The Dominican Republic, when I had just bought such a thing from a local craft artist. The "entertainer" actually just set up a stall next to the Basilica of Santa Maria in the old town of Santo Domingo, and the reason why people call them artists is because many of the goods in this place in Dominica are made by the owners of these stalls themselves, although rough but not lacking in clumsiness. To be precise, people should be called "craftsmen".
It's funny to say, because there are too many tourist attractions in the world, and when we walk through the art street of the old town of Santo Domingo, we see a lot of small crafts that have very unceremoniously concluded: "Yiwu small commodity market out." "Foreign templates are made domestically." Yes, these dazzling, exaggerated tourist souvenirs, in addition to the diligent small businessmen in our hometown, who can make it, and who will be able to reduce the cost to such a low price?
However, this voice changed from rational and strong, and soon became hesitant - these small souvenirs are almost none of the same, and most of them carry the strong terroir smell of the Americas, if it is really imported from the Yiwu small commodity market, then the understanding of American folk art by small traders in China is too high. This kind of pure handmade stuff is not the characteristic of our tourist crafts.
When Liu Nanping, the president of the Yangzhou Painting Academy, with a dream-like expression, bought a real, but exaggerated black coral necklace pendant from a small businessman with a cabbage price, everyone understood that we were thinking too much.
These are all fake local handicrafts, and because tourists are still quite limited, locals use their own "stones" and crafts to live instead of getting rich. China has just established diplomatic relations with Dominica for a few months, and the Yiwu small commodity market has not yet had time to expand its business to this distant place.
future? According to local media, it will not be so easy to do made in China in the future, dominica is located in the Caribbean Sea, and is regarded as a backyard by the United States. Uncle Sam is heavily fortified and wary of Chinese goods attacking their backyards.
However, the staff of our embassy do not agree with this view, the reason is very simple, the United States mainland has been beaten by Made In China everywhere, and it is only a matter of time before we occupy the market here.
As a Chinese, of course, I am happy to see domestic products roaming the mountains, but before the domestic products come in, I will experience shopping with a primitive feeling, which is also a special interest, anyway, I will not refuse.
I saw the counter of this craftsman in a juice shop, this man with a knife in one hand and a piece of tropical hardwood in the other, was working on his own creation, just watching this old man chop a meter of hardwood into small pieces to create small souvenirs, and four words "cherish the earth" popped up in Lao Sa's head.
It was also at this moment that I saw this small wooden turtle ornament on his counter, only half the size of a palm, and although the craftsmanship was rough, it could remind people of the little turtles creeping on the beach and running to the sea in "Animal World".
At that time, I just thought it was novel, asked about the price of kung fu, and the old man immediately enthusiastically punched a hole in it and dressed me into a key chain - you can see that he really wants to do this business.
Forget it, things are very cheap anyway, and it is a pleasure to buy and play.
However, when I took this thing back to the hotel, the more I looked at it, the more wrong it became.
The body of this little turtle is carved from a kind of rosewood-like hardwood, but its shell is colorful and has another mystery. At first, I thought it was carved out of wood by the craftsman and dyed in color. But when I touched it with my hand, I felt that it was not right, and the slight feeling of filing and the cold feeling suggested that I was not wood at all, but made up of a substance that really resembled a turtle shell! Look closely, that delicate color change is natural, not like artificial smudge can be done. If you count carefully, you can find that this "turtle shell" is actually made of layers of carapace.
What is this made of?!
Ask a few media celebrities who shop with you, although they are all well-informed people, but no one recognizes this kind of handicraft; ask the local waiter in Dominica, he actually shakes his head, and he has not seen such works in the stalls of other artists. It seems that it is probably the only work of the craftsman I know.
At this time, some people said that the old party that flew to Dominica together was an online article for Baidu, and he must know.
So I invited lao Fang and asked him for advice. As a result, Lao Fang took this thing upside down and looked at the bottom, and finally came to such a conclusion.
The hawksbill turtle, a reptile that is still mysterious to humans today, this turtle with beautiful carapace can live for 1500 years (which means we can meet a hawksbill turtle that witnessed the anshi chaos), and we don't know much about their life in the sea.
However, our country has traditionally made crafts from the shell of tortoiseshell, which is regarded as a precious treasure like coral.
A gold tortoiseshell bracelet from the Palace Museum's collection
The distribution range of tortoiseshell is very wide, there are coastal areas in China, and the Caribbean Sea where Dominica is located, and there seems to be a lot of local numbers, so you can see Dominican children taking tortoiseshell carapace as a small plate when eating. However, this is only due to the special local environmental conditions, the world as a whole, hawksbill turtles are already in a state of critical endangerment due to the wild hunting of humans, so the international tortoiseshell products are prohibited from being bought and sold.
So the old side is not to scare me, really take this through the customs, in theory is indeed an illegal act.
Lao Fang left, but I began to fall into the trap of skepticism and could not extricate myself - I remember watching "Animal World", in which the small tortoiseshell back armor born was also pieced together piece by piece, and the thing in my hand, obviously more similar to the body of the shrimp, was composed of section by section.
Although lao fang has made up a entry for Baidu... But isn't Baidu wrong? It is easy to shake the mountain, and it is difficult to change Baidu's mistakes, which is not just talk.
At this thought, I suddenly counted my heart. I remembered that there is a kind of chart function on the Internet, as long as you upload a picture, you can help you find a similar map, if you find a similar map, its identity, is not it obvious?
I tried to pass on the picture of this woodcut turtle, but the results came back accurately and frustratingly - countless artifacts and pictures of large turtles and small turtles popped up, but none of them were such crafts. It seems that making a fuss about this thing is really the craftsman's unique skill.
Looking at these messy search results, I was annoyed (Dominican brother, what do you do with such a weird creation?). Then a question suddenly came to mind—we had to think about it according to the logic of the computer. In that way, it is reasonable for a craft to be recognized as a cultural relic or a turtle, because it is originally a craft, and if you want to figure out what its back armor is, then just take a close-up.
So, I took this "turtle shell" as a close-up and posted it. This time......
The results are as confusing as ever.
Desperate to give up, I turned my head again – or would I try another search engine? outcome......
As a result, an encouraging result came out – the search results showed that this should be a multi-plate mollusk, the "part" of the daimyo Chiton.
Continue to follow the vine to touch the melon, and the truth begins to emerge.
It turned out that Chiton, like the hawksbill turtle, was a marine animal widely distributed from the coast of China to the Caribbean Sea, and we in China gave it the name "stone turtle".
The stone turtle began to live on the earth hundreds of millions of years ago, and its fossil image is shown on the left, even with a bit of viciousness, but now it is the appearance of the right side, usually lurking on the reef on the shore, quietly living in harmony.
The size of the stone turtle ranges from the size of a tide insect to nearly half a meter, but each species has a pair of link-like, artistic back armor, and the dortoise shell I bought is made of the "lock armor" of this stone turtle. The local craftsman finished his work by gluing the shell of a stone turtle to a wood-carved turtle.
Although it is not like Dean Liu picking up the "leak" of black coral, it is enough to satisfy me to get such a gadget that the craft store does not have - after all, there is an "artist" idea in it. More importantly, the stone turtle is far less rare than the tortoiseshell, and it is not illegal to take this thing home.
Finding out this matter made Lao Fang a little embarrassed, and frankly said that he should not help me see things after drinking, but he was also very curious, and the next day he specially pulled me to buy the same little turtle, ready to take it back to entertain Sun.
Looking at this result, I can't help but laugh.
China's stone turtle is also a large number, but at present it is mainly used to dry the dried abalone disguised as dried abalone, and no one really thought of developing it into handicrafts
Our ability to use nature's gifts to make works of art can be described as miraculous, but it is a little incredible that the small thing of the stone turtle has fallen behind a Dominican "artist"
There is really no herb at the end of the world.
【End】
Welcome to follow