Lin Zhiwen

01 · Lineage & Regional School

Lin Zhiwen, Male, Han, from Wenzhoushiouhai, Zhejiang, is a fifth-batch national representative bearer of Zhuzhi Making Craftsmanship (Ⅷ-71). The tradition is documented in Wenzhoushiouhai, Zhejiang. Within the regional tradition and school record of Zhuzhi Making Craftsmanship in Wenzhoushiouhai, Zhejiang: The distinguishing features of this craft lie in its rich regional cultural character and the sustainability of its resources. The Wanli-era Wenzhou Prefecture Gazetteer records that in the Northern Song dynasty, Wenzhou's juan paper was presented as tribute at 500 sheets per year. Jiang Huai of the Ming dynasty records in the Qihai Suotan (Idle Talk of the Coral Sea): "Wenzhou makes juan paper, white, compact, and smooth, broadly resembling Korean paper." Ping paper production developed rapidly; by the 1930s, ping paper was sold as far as Shanghai, Fujian, Taiwan, and Southeast Asia. The craft continued to develop and has been transmitted mainly through families up to the present.

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

Male, of Han ethnicity, born in February 1957 in Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province. A representative bearer of bamboo paper making craftsmanship (Zeya ping paper making craftsmanship), a fifth-batch national intangible cultural heritage project. He is a technician of Zeya ping paper making. At the age of seven he learned to make Zeya ping paper with his parents, and by thirteen he had mastered sheet-lifting, the key technique of ping paper, and had a complete command of the seventeen processes and one hundred and nine steps, from preparing the materials and beating the pulp to forming the sheet. Under the impact of modern manufacturing the market for ping paper shrank sharply, and the craft has few successors. To preserve information about the craft he wrote down the ping paper making process in words, photographed it and compiled the material into a book. Drawing also on his investigations of Zeya ping paper making and the culture of Paper Mountain, he published Zeya Papermaking. Within the documented technical tradition of Zhuzhi Making Craftsmanship in Wenzhoushiouhai, Zhejiang: Ping paper is a paper for daily use manufactured with bamboo as the raw material, centered on Zeya in Ouhai District, Wenzhou City, in southern Zhejiang. The Zeya ping paper making craft is the folk craft of this region that produces ping paper through traditional handicraft. This craft is mainly distributed across 18 villages of Zeya Town, Ouhai District, Wenzhou City, Zhejiang Province, among which Tangzhai Village, Xi'an Village, and Hengyang Village are representative. Papermaking in Zeya has gone through a thousand years from ancient times to the present, with the papermaking technology continuously developing. Zeya ping paper is made from Wenzhou water bamboo and other clustered bamboos as raw materials through 17 process steps: cutting bamboo, preparing the material, pickling and brushing, boiling the material (aoshuo), washing and brushing, pounding and brushing, treading and brushing, rinsing and brushing, preparing the vat (pincao), forming the sheets, pressing the sheets, separating the sheets, drying the sheets, arranging the sheets, taking the sheets apart, bundling the paper, and stamping. Some of these processes and steps correspond to those recorded in the Tiangong Kaiwu (Exploitation of the Works of Nature), and manual operation runs through the entire ping paper production process. The Zeya ping paper making craft has numerous process steps, laborious work, and modest returns, but it is closely related to people's daily life. The ping paper marketing system is complete, and from product production to the point of sale it is quite fully developed; it has been transmitted to the present. The people of Zeya act according to local conditions and use local materials, making scientific use of the water resources of the hills and of tools for pounding and brushing the material. The clustered bamboo used as papermaking raw material grows on the slopes on both sides of streams, and annual felling pays attention to healthy ecological cycling, giving the craft the character of sustainable development. Zeya has long been known as the "Paper Mountain." The Zeya ping paper making craft preserves and transmits relatively completely the papermaking technique, one of China's "Four Great Inventions." After the coastal evacuation and maritime ban of the early Qing dynasty, the population of Zeya gradually increased. The Zeya ping paper making craft is set among mountains and waters, integrated with the natural landscape; the entire production process coexists harmoniously with the ecology. The villages that transmit the ping paper making craft are scattered through the mountain forests, and the papermaking raw materials and power are both green and renewable. Overall, this craft combines scientific and artistic qualities, reflecting the awe and respect of the Chinese nation for the ecological environment. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "": "Archival Record of Process Steps": Zeya ping paper is made from Wenzhou water bamboo and other clustered bamboos as raw materials through 17 process steps: cutting bamboo, preparing the material, pickling and brushing, boiling the material (aoshuo), washing and brushing, pounding and brushing, treading and brushing, rinsing and brushing, preparing the vat (pincao), forming the sheets, pressing the sheets, separating the sheets, drying the sheets, arranging the sheets, taking the sheets apart, bundling the paper, and stamping. Some of these processes and steps correspond to those recorded in the Tiangong Kaiwu (Exploitation of the Works of Nature), and manual operation runs through the entire ping paper production process.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

He has attended academic conferences including the International Symposium on Comparative Studies of East Asian Popular Literature and Folk Culture and the China Symposium on the Protection and Development of Bamboo Paper.

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. Lin Zhiwen · National Representative Bearer Archive