Dong Qiaolan

01 · Lineage & Regional School

Dong Qiaolan, Female, Han, from Wenxi, Shanxi, is a fifth-batch national representative bearer of Dough Figurines (Ⅶ-53). The tradition is documented in Wenxi, Shanxi. Within the regional tradition and school record of Dough Figurines in Wenxi, Shanxi: Wenxi huamo is a traditional edible modeling art popular in the Wenxi County area of Shanxi Province. It has a long history and is closely tied to local traditional customs, and is widely applied in folk activities such as festivals and celebrations, sacrifices, weddings, birthday celebrations, funerals, the raising of roof beams, and moving house. By use, Wenxi huamo falls into three main categories: seasonal festivals, rites of passage, and sacrificial offerings. Weddings mostly use forms such as dragon and phoenix, pomegranate, and 'fish boring into the lotus'; birthday celebrations are modeled with longevity peaches, the God of Longevity, and 'five bats presenting longevity'. Local steaming emphasizes fully risen dough, stable forms, and sufficient firing; once out of the steamer, water colors are applied while the pieces are still hot, and the finished products serve both as food and as gifts. The origin of flour flowers is closely related to the traditional dietary and belief customs of the people; Tang-dynasty dough-sculpture remains excavated from the Astana tombs in Turpan, Xinjiang, show that this folk art has a long history of development in China.

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

Female, of the Han ethnic group, born in December 1954 in Wenxi County, Shanxi Province. From childhood she learned to make huamo, the decorated steamed buns of the region, with her grandmother and mother, carefully pondering every step from kneading the dough and pinching the flowers to assembling them, and so mastered the basic skills of huamo making. After she married, whenever a wedding, funeral, house-moving, roof-raising or other customary event took place in the village, she would willingly make huamo for the villagers. She is able to design patterns from real living creatures and, using traditional techniques, to pinch dough into flowers and plants, animals and human figures, meeting the various requirements of local folk rituals. At the same time, in the slack farming season she gathers huamo enthusiasts from the villages and teaches them the processes and key points of huamo making; to date she has trained more than thirty people, some of whom are already able to work independently. Within the documented technical tradition of Dough Figurines in Wenxi, Shanxi: Flour flowers, popularly called huamo (flower steamed buns), wowohua, and gaohua, and also known as dough sculpture, are a traditional edible modeling art popular in the northern regions of Shandong, Shanxi, Henan, Shaanxi, and Gansu, and at the same time a festival-custom art very closely tied to everyday life. In the northern regions, flour-flower modeling has deep roots among the people; at every traditional festival, each household makes flour flowers according to local customs and conventions. These flour-flower products come in a great variety of forms and postures; they serve multiple functions, including offering, display, and food, and can also be given as gifts to relatives and friends, becoming an important medium of social exchange among the people. The differing local conditions, customs, and ritual emphases of each region have given flour-flower art rich expressive forms and distinct regional characteristics; the distinctive shapes and brilliant colors of flour-flower products adorn the cultural space of traditional festivals with singular beauty. Wenxi huamo has no inherited pattern books to consult and no surviving templates to rely upon; it is shaped entirely by the deft hands of skillful women, and is therefore praised as 'the art of mothers'. In making them, one first kneads the dough into forms of ingenious conception, then applies water-based colors as decoration. The steamed huamo are full in form and bright in color, radiating vitality. Wenxi huamo are finely made and uniquely charming, and are deeply loved by the local people. With the deepening development of the market economy, Wenxi huamo have entered the commodity market as famous, high-quality local specialty products embodying the regional cultural character of Shanxi; they are sold at home and abroad, and their reputation grows with each passing day. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "The mother's art": Wenxi flower buns are made without patterns or models, wholly by the maker's hand, and so are called the mother's art. "Festivals, sacrifices, weddings and house-raising": Wenxi flower buns serve festivals, sacrifices, weddings, birthdays, funerals and house-raising, and are exchanged as gifts. "Dong Qiaolan and her students": The inheritor Dong Qiaolan, born in 1954, learned from her grandmother and mother and has trained more than thirty villagers.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

A national representative bearer of dough flower work (Wenxi huamo), a fifth-batch national intangible cultural heritage project.

04 · Associated Heritage Item Dossier

05 · Fellow National Bearers Lineage

National representative bearers recorded under the same item code, ordered from the first to the sixth batch. Batch order is not a teacher–student relationship.

06 · Archival Sources & Bibliography

1. Dong Qiaolan · National Representative Bearer Archive