Hong Ronghui

01 · Lineage & Regional School

From childhood he studied the traditional Yangmei jadeite-carving techniques under his father, Hong Meishen, and his uncle, Hong Meifa, and later took Huang Zhi, Ye Jinlong and others as his teachers, integrating the jade-carving arts of north and south China. Within the regional tradition and school record of Jade Carving in Jieyang, Guangdong: Taking Yangmei Village, Pandong Town, Rongcheng District, Jieyang City as the core, it radiates to Jiedong, Puning and other counties and cities of the Chaoshan region; the locality is known as the “Jade Capital of China”. Raw materials are mostly purchased from the Hpakant jade tract of Burma, and finished products are sold through the Jieyang jade market to all parts of China and Southeast Asia. The area around Yangmei Village was originally farmed by its inhabitants; in the early 20th century the villagers began by refurbishing old jadeware, going from village to village to buy up old jade articles, repair them and resell them, gradually accumulating experience in judging materials and carving. After the 1980s they shifted to buying Burmese jadeite rough stone directly and carving it for their own sale, forming a jadeite-processing cluster organized around family workshops.

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

Male, Han ethnicity, born in June 1955 in Jieyang, Guangdong Province. Over more than thirty years of practice he has continued to learn, review and improve, and he commands a thorough knowledge of the properties of jade: he calculates the material accurately, designs ingeniously and works with fine craftsmanship; his pieces select and use the stone and its colours deftly and are marked by the qualities of novelty, rarity, distinctiveness, excellence and refinement. Within the documented technical tradition of Jade Carving in Jieyang, Guangdong: Yangmei jadeite carving is a folk jade-carving technique of Guangdong Province; it arose in the early 20th century and is distributed in the area of Yangmei Village, Pandong Town, Dongshan District, Jieyang City. The Yangmei jadeite-carving craft developed from old-jadeware processing techniques and has now become an economic pillar of the locality, forming an enormous industrial chain. Yangmei jadeite carving is particular about its materials: its products mainly use high-quality jade produced in the “Yeren” (savage) mountains of northern Burma (the Hpakant jade tract) and from within China; these raw materials are crystal clear in texture and extremely hard. Yangmei jadeite carving skillfully exploits the natural grain of jade, pursuing the marvelous, the ingenious, the refined and the distinctive; its forms are small and delicate, true to life and vivid, its carving consummate and mature, so that the jade articles seem made by nature itself. Chinese jadeite carving divides into two major style systems, northern and southern; Yangmei jadeite carving belongs to the southern school, and includes many techniques and styles such as relief, three-dimensional carving, base-supported carving, openwork carving and water-adjusting carving. In the course of its technical formation, Yangmei jadeite carving was influenced to varying degrees by local folk traditional crafts such as Chaoshan wood carving, stone carving and Chaozhou embroidery, displaying a distinct Lingnan local character. Wood carving is a folk craft of carving on wood. It generally selects fine, dense, tough, deformation-resistant timbers such as nanmu (Phoebe), red sandalwood, camphor, cypress, ginkgo, agarwood, padauk and longan as raw materials, and uses circular carving, relief, openwork and piercing techniques; some pieces are additionally colored and painted on the surface to protect and beautify the material. Wood-carving technique has existed in China since ancient times, and can be traced back as early as the Warring States period. Early wood carving was used mostly for tribute articles, deity statues and architectural decoration; in the Ming and Qing dynasties the making of wooden ornaments and everyday utensils developed considerably, forming a variety of styles rich in regional characteristics. Present-day folk wood carving mainly highlights play value and decorative quality, emphasizing the beauty of the wood itself; in making, craftsmen judge the shape and circumstances of the material and give form according to its nature, incorporating modern ideas on the basis of inherited tradition. Among the various kinds of wood carving, Macao deity-statue carving has always upheld a creative purpose centered on religious ends; it forms a style of its own and attracts attention. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "Rough stone from the Hpakant fields": The craft uses fine rough stone mainly from the Hpakant fields in northern Myanmar and from domestic sources, clear and extremely hard. "The southern school, with water-regulating and ground-lifting carving": Chinese jadeite carving divides into northern and southern systems; Yangmei belongs to the southern school with relief, round, ground-lifting, openwork and water-regulating techniques. "Novel, ingenious, refined and distinctive": Exploiting natural veining, the craft prizes novelty, ingenuity, refinement and distinctiveness, with small lifelike pieces that seem naturally formed. "The influence of Chaoshan woodcarving, stone carving and embroidery": In its formation the craft was influenced by local Chaoshan woodcarving, stone carving and embroidery, giving it a marked Lingnan character.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

National representative bearer of Jade Carving (Yangmei Jadeite Carving), a fifth-batch national intangible cultural heritage project. Attaching great importance to the training of successors, in 2011 he founded the Jieyang Yudu Vocational School and served as its principal in person, and he helped establish a jewellery design and processing programme there, teaching and passing on the craft.

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. Hong Ronghui · National Representative Bearer Archive