Yu Caigen

01 · Lineage & Regional School

Yu Caigen, Female, Han, from Hangzhoushiyuhang, Zhejiang, is a fifth-batch national representative bearer of Cansi Weaving Craftsmanship (Ⅷ-99). The tradition is documented in Hangzhoushiyuhang, Zhejiang. Within the regional tradition and school record of Cansi Weaving Craftsmanship in Hangzhoushiyuhang, Zhejiang: The Yuhang District of Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province, lies in the Hangjiahu Plain, and the clear silk floss produced locally has a long history. By the Kaiyuan reign of the Tang dynasty, the Yuhang clear silk floss was already famous far and wide. This silk floss had the advantages of a pure white color, even thickness, and a tough, pliable texture, and was therefore listed by the imperial court as a tributary levy. In the Southern Song period, Yuhang silk floss was the finest in all of Zhejiang. After the Qing dynasty, the clear silk floss became even more renowned, and during the Kangxi reign it was once exported as far as Japan. In the Republican period, Yuhang's 'Lao Hengchang' clear silk floss enjoyed an even greater reputation at home and abroad. In 1929, Yuhang clear silk floss won a special prize at the West Lake Exposition. Since the 1970s, large numbers of mulberry trees within Yuhang have been felled; coupled with the low economic returns of sericulture, silkworm rearing has greatly diminished, and silkworm-keeping households have switched trades one after another, leaving the floss-making raw material in short supply and becoming a stream without a source.

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

Female, Han ethnicity, born in May 1949, a native of Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province. National representative bearer of silk weaving craftsmanship (Yuhang clear-water silk floss making techniques), a fifth-batch national intangible cultural heritage project. Technician in Yuhang clear-water silk floss making. She learned the che miandou (silk-floss hood stretching) step from her mother as a child, and by the age of thirteen had mastered clear-water silk floss making. After finishing primary school she farmed at home and made silk floss in the slack farming season. At seventeen she entered the Dinghe Qianjin Comprehensive Factory in Tangqi Town, and in 1992 she opened a silk floss processing workshop. Through careful experimentation she devised a technique that uses soda ash and sesame oil to remove sericin, making the clear-water silk floss she produces purer. Her silk floss is of fine quality, white as jade and light as cloud, and enjoys considerable renown in the Hangzhou-Jiaxing-Huzhou region; she makes and sells more than 3,000 kilograms of clear-water silk floss a year. Within the documented technical tradition of Cansi Weaving Craftsmanship in Hangzhoushiyuhang, Zhejiang: As early as the Zhou dynasty, every household here planted mulberries and raised silkworms. Yuhang clear silk floss takes its name from the clear water used in its pure, clean bleaching. Yuhang lies on both banks of the Tiaoxi River, where the Tianmu Mountain springs pour into the Tiaoxi, warm but not cold and with few impurities, which is favorable for floss-making. Making clear silk floss involves a process of removing the outer sericin from the silk, comprising six steps: selecting cocoons, boiling cocoons, rinsing, peeling the cocoons to form the floss, stretching and framing the floss, and sun-drying. The cleaner the sericin is removed in making, the better the quality of the floss. The Yuhang clear silk floss craft demands very high manual skill, and its production is accomplished entirely through the artisan's technique. For a long time the clear silk floss craft has been transmitted unbroken from generation to generation by word of mouth and personal instruction; in this process the transmitters have accumulated rich practical experience and continually merged it into the floss-making craft, making this skill the crystallized collective wisdom of the Yuhang people. The clear silk floss made in Yuhang is white and even in body, smooth and soft to the touch, with good elasticity, strong tensile strength, and no floss lumps, filaments, or impurities; its excellent quality has long been valued by the world. At the same time, owing to technological development, new techniques have dealt a huge blow to the traditional craft, and for a time the clear silk floss craft could hardly be sustained. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "Documented Process Record": Making clear silk floss involves a process of removing the outer sericin from the silk, comprising six steps: selecting cocoons, boiling cocoons, rinsing, peeling the cocoons to form the floss, stretching and framing the floss, and sun-drying.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

Over the years she has consistently taken on apprentices and taught the craft, training more than ten cohorts of successors.

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. Yu Caigen · National Representative Bearer Archive