Sitting with HanYan’s family on their front porch, I find myself in admiration of their naturally creative Dai way of life. She is making a pouch, her father is building their new house’s toilet, and her granddad is making a bamboo container while at the same time supervising my first attempt at bamboo weaving.
Before her kind invitation to lunch (which comprised of vegetables and meats they had themselves grown and reared), I had passed by an elderly lady weaving at a loom in her front room, and met her neighbours Dai grandpa and grandma who were in the process of making bark paper for their traditional oiled-paper umbrellas.
Creating and making was everywhere you looked. We sat on bamboo stools her granddad had constructed, ate oranges off a table he had woven, refilled our rice bowls from an old bamboo pot her ancestors had made. The women wore beautiful tops and skirts they had instructed to be tailored in the style and fabric of their choice. For this community, creativity is not an occupation reserved for professionals, but for everyone as an integral part of life. In modern society, designers are always looking for ways to create bonds between user and products to prolong the life-cycles of objects and reduce excess consumption. The process of designing and making cannot help but create a strong attachment to the final outcome because of the thought and time required. It makes me think, perhaps it is time that more of us stopped buying our lives pre-made in shops and instead created them for ourselves.
Her father, being one of the few Chengdu Lacquer craftsmen remaining, was told by the government that his skill had to be continued. Unable to find students willing to commit to the long processes, she and her husband took over the business themselves. She proudly announces that they are the only ones still making and selling these precious objects, and she may be right. Earlier I had paid a visit to the one remaining factory, also set up by the government in an attempt to save the craft, which supposedly still produced traditional lacquerware. The eerily quiet building turned out to be more of a hobby workshop for the other remaining lacquer craftspeople of the city.
So what is the future for this craft?
As I left the lady’s shop, I was reassured that this craft will soon be dead, and that if I brought one of the several thousand dollar vases I would get a great return on my investment. It was not the answer I was expecting, but again she may be right.
Klaas, along with his wife, runs a project turned business that provides the structure within which poor semi-nomadic Tibetans are given the chance to improve their lives in the form of an additional source of income. After providing them with training in wool handicraft techniques that have been developed and progressed to suit the style and standard required to be sold in the modern westernized world, AmdoCraft places orders of designed products from them. These are then sold to shops and also in their own AmdoCafes.
Sitting in the cafe with a hot chocolate and cake, I contemplate why I am so drawn to this project. As a designer it is satisfying, as it illustrates how a well considered project and intelligent design really can make a positive difference in people’s lives. As someone living in an increasingly competitive capitalist world it is comforting, as it proves that business and human kindness can co-exist successfully. As a month and half long observer of China it is exciting, as it is hope that for those who want to continue living their own ethnic minority lifestyles but not struggle in poverty, there is an alternative to relocation, financial handouts and absorption into acceptable mainstream society.
“No-one wants to learn, even if you paid them money!” This sixth generation Uyghur potter’s story sounds so familiar. His children have no interest in learning the family secret formula, and he laughs ironically as he gives his response to the question of whether he has apprentices.
He continues “People do not buy these things to use in their homes anymore, tourists buy them as souvenirs.” It seems that while tourism is able to keep this craft alive for the time being, the next generations are not so keen to become souvenir makers.
Visiting the market later on, I see what people do buy to use in their homes: Mass-manufactured, perfectly finished, minimally decorated china without any crude charm or obvious decoration. Perhaps it is a sign of development and changing tastes to suit the modern world. Cheap for everyone to buy, visually simple as not to be obtrusive in brightly lit white walled houses. Is it modern living that has forgotten to include space for the products of craft, or is it the craft that needs to develop to fit into the modern home? Probably both.
Heated wall.
The homestay may have had an unpredictable electricity supply, but the house’s central heating definately worked. Fires inside double layered separation walls turn them into giant radiators that not only kept the rooms warm, but dried the washing!
Oronchun Aunty makes every item by hand using traditional birch bark skin craft methods. If you wanted to buy one bowl it would cost you the same as if you wanted to buy ten, or even if you wanted to buy a hundred. To her, the value of each and every bowl is identical. They are made of the same material and each have the same function. In the modern world, where terms such as “limited edition” and “mass-production” can determine an object’s value, are we overcomplicating design? Are we so spoilt for choice of what to buy that we have lost the ability to appreciate the pure and simple value of function?
