Kashgar

“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.

Tuohe

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?

Harbin – Alihe

As I travel north, I find myself increasingly drawn to discover the cultures of the ethnic minority groups that live within the borders of what is geographically China. Observing from the outside, China appears to be one vast country. Observing from the inside, it appears to be one central and dominant country of Han people, surrounded by smaller countries of ethnic minority people. However, the borders of these ethnic minority countries are fragile and disappearing as Han and capitalist culture infiltrates.

This week I met 2 inspirational people. Both with a sad acceptance that much of their own history and culture has already been lost, but are themselves the flames of hope that what remains might survive.

In a year Wu Yisheng qualifies as a agricultural veterinarian, he has studied hard and it would be a financially secure job. Instead however, he plans to open a small craft shop selling fish skin products. He was taught by his mother to make Hezhe fish skin clothing, but understands the limited demand such a product has in the modern world, thus his desire to expand to other products to keep the craft alive.

Wunan and her husband record and promote what still exists of Oronchen culture. On sale in her shop are birch bark containers that her aunt has made using traditional methods, she says that drastic action is required to progress and therefore save the craft. In the past, natural development was possible, but after so much outside disturbances to their culture this is no longer the case.

Tianjin

Mr. Wei’s father was a kite-maker, his father’s father was a kite-maker, his grand-father’s father was a kite-maker. As this unassuming man, who is in fact one of the most well-known kite-makers in Tianjin, excitedly shows me how to fly a mini-kite indoors, I cannot help but feel a certain sadness knowing that his son has no interest in continuing the craft. For this generation, the world is full of possibilities, alternative past-times and more financially rewarding careers. Whether these bring him as much satisfaction as kites do to his father, who unboxes his kites as if a child opening gifts on Christmas morning, is not for me to judge. I have been free to chose my own interests and career, so I should probably celebrate the fact that China’s new generation can now do the same.

Weifang

It felt like I had discovered Narnia as I stepped into Mr. Zhang’s kite workshop. It was alive with animals in the form of bamboo wireframes, large pencil outline drawings and beautifully painted silk. As he showed me his current experiments in moving crab claws and dragon head antennaes, I too wanted to become a kitemaker!  What a contrast to the production-shop I had visited the day before. They too had made kites, but in a human mass-production line producing simplified versions of designs copied from workshops such as Mr. Zhang’s. In the production-shop, the kitemaking process had been divided into small tasks to enable maximum efficiency and thus output. The ladies at that production-shop were clearly skilled at the craft, but obviously bored. You could sense their lack of enthusium in the kites before you even met them.

Mr. Zhang’s daughter, who helps her father make kites, says that to enable them to keep doing new creative projects, they keep the workshop small and do not produce large quantities of any one kite. If you go into the production-shops next year or in a few years time they will still be making and selling the same kites, there is no progress.

It seems that for kite-making, and perhaps many of the crafts still alive in China, it is not a question of whether the skill will survive, but if it will develop. It seems that production-workshops are training a great number of workers to become very competent technically, but not inspiring them to understand the science or joys behind the craft which would give them the passion to create something new.

Xiaozha
Classic Hongda

Quanzhou
Spacious 2 seater electric vehicle with matching security lock and storage basket.

As I carefully wrap my Hui-An hat to send back to Hong Kong, I am once again pondering  a question that has been milling around in my head since the beginning of the China trip. In China, what gives an object value? Or more specifically, what do I value in an object from China? The ideas I had brought with me from London about appreciating locally and hand-made objects have all be thrown into question out here. In China, “Made in China” is no longer the imported product, it is what is made locally. You also suddenly realise that most things that are “Made in China” are hand-made, only at lightning speeds by workers producing identical objects as if they were machines.

So why am I so precious about this hat?  Perhaps it is because I know that these hats are made only to order as it takes this skilled craftsman a month to make each one. Perhaps it is because I know that once this generation of hatmakers stop making these hats, they will no longer be made, the younger generation have not the patience to learn or practise this craft. Maybe in China that is what I am starting to value, “time”. The time and commitment of the maker gives me the responsibility as the owner to give the object the same amount of  respect and care as they did. In a world that is always in a hurry to get somewhere, time is becoming more and more scarce. I wonder if China, in it’s hurry to catch up with the West, is losing something along the way, the value of Time.

Quanzhou
In a shady alleyway behind an old mosque.

Password protected.

Minimalist.

Not so minimalist.

With the Chinese struggling to understand my limited version of Mandarin, my friend has been having to work hard as a translator… and brought me this as a gift.

I had to have it translated, “The whole world should speak Mandarin”.