Editor's Note: This article is produced in collaboration with the Chongqing Institute of Foreign Studies, as part of a series of ongoing reports exploring the city's abundant resources in intangible cultural heritages.
The spring rain has been pattering continuously, washing away all the chill of the winter. The verdant bamboo sways in the spring breeze, starting rounds of green waves.
In the eyes of the ancients, bamboo is graceful and poetic. It is crowned as one of the Four Gentlemen Plants, with the other three being plum blossom, orchid, and chrysanthemum. Zheng Banqiao, a painter and poet of the Qing Dynasty, once praised, “Withstanding inclement weather and tough environment, bamboo weathered through scorching summer and freezing winter, standing still and straight.”
For us, bamboo may be just an ordinary plant, but under the dexterous hands of Xiushan people, they can be made into delicate handicrafts.
Xiushan, Chongqing is a subtropical city with monsoon humid climate and adequate rainfall, which is very suitable for growing bamboo. Phyllostachys pubescens, green bamboo, fish scale bamboo, golden bamboo, mottled bamboo, and porcelain bamboo grown there are perfect for bamboo weaving.
Bamboo weaving refers to the art of making handicrafts and appliances with bamboo strips and filaments of even thickness.
The procedure of Xiushan bamboo weaving includes bottoming, weaving, and seaming. To make patterns diverse and delicate, many ways of weaving are adopted in the process, with circular weaving as the chief method together with braiding, inserting, piercing, cutting, seaming, pinning, tying, and knotting.
Patterns of rich and bright colors are produced by cross weaving bamboo strips and filaments dyed with various hues. In the early years, Xiushan bamboo weaving technique is mostly adopted in the production of bamboo baskets and dustpans.
A large migration in the Qing Dynasty brought a large number of outlanders, mainly from Hubei and Hunan Province, into then Sichuan Province, now Sichuan Province and Chongqing Municipality.
What came in with those outlanders together was the novel bamboo weaving art, which paved the way for the invention of ornamental bamboo weaving including festive lantern and revolving scenic lantern weaving.
According to Records of Xiushan County, during the reign of the Emperor Tongzhi of the Qing Dynasty, there was a bamboo artist named Huang Tongdian in Xiushan, who could surprisingly weave as many as 80 different patterns into bamboo mat, such as flowers, birds, insects, fish, words, mountains and rivers, characters, as well as landscapes.
Xiushan bamboo weaving is exquisite in workmanship and rich in ethnic characteristics. Represented by shoulder baskets, pack baskets, shoe baskets and sifters, bamboo filament woven work is fine and aesthetic. Represented by bamboo mats, baskets with lid, bast mats, bamboo strips woven work is even in thickness and of strong practicability.
Xiushan bamboo weaving handicrafts have been exhibited on many occasions including Chongqing Cultural Industry Expo, Chongqing Trade Fair, and Shanghai World Expo. It has won favor of many for its exquisite craftsmanship and unique style. In 2009, it was listed as one of the Chongqing intangible cultural heritages.
The craftsmen often have to sit for hours or longer to complete a work due to the intricate bamboo weaving techniques. Without patience or carefulness, they might easily cut their hands in a blink of an eye. More importantly, bamboo weaving is a time-consuming effort and has a relatively low market value, so young people are unwilling to inherit the skill nowadays. With few craftsmen left, there are deep concerns that this craftsmanship may be in danger of dying out.
(The original article comes with a Chinese version authored by Li Haoyue (advisor/Ran Hongqing)as well as an English version translated by Wu Yi (advisor/Xing Dandan), and was later narrated by Zhang Zikang (advisor/Ren Yi), all of whom are students and teachers from Chongqing Institute of Foreign Studies.)