Shengzhou Bamboo Weaving
01 · Historical Records
Shengzhou bamboo weaving began more than two thousand years ago in the Warring States period; by the Han and Jin dynasties its craftsmanship had already become refined, and during the Ming and Qing dynasties the standard of weaving improved further, with bamboo weaving becoming an indispensable article of daily use among the people. After 1949, bamboo weaving craftsmen cooperated to run workshops and established the Shengxian (Shengzhou) Bamboo Strips Production and Marketing Workshop, which in 1954 was reorganized as the Shengxian (Shengzhou) Bamboo Ware Production Cooperative; in 1959 it was renamed the Craft Bamboo Weaving Factory and was acclaimed “the number one bamboo weaving mill at home and abroad.” After the 1990s, plastic products of all kinds replaced bamboo-woven daily goods, demand for bamboo weaving steadily declined, and bamboo weaving craftsmen found it increasingly hard to make a living. The Shengzhou Craft Bamboo Weaving Factory ceased production in November 2002; Shengzhou bamboo weaving lacks successors and urgently needs rescue and support.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Shengzhou lies in eastern Zhejiang, on the upper reaches of the Cao’e River and at the western foot of the Siming Mountains. It is rich in bamboo resources, and its bamboo splits well into strips, making the area suitable for developing the craft of bamboo weaving. Shengzhou bamboo weaving is found throughout the city’s bamboo-producing areas, with substantial production in downtown Shengzhou and in Cangyan, Changle, Chongren, Huangzhe, Tongyuan, Shihuang, and Ganlin. During the Guangxu reign of the Qing dynasty, bamboo weaving workshops appeared in Shengzhou, mainly producing fine-strip bamboo-woven vessels such as carrying baskets, examination baskets, incense baskets, food baskets, and shoe baskets. Shengzhou bamboo weaving comprises twelve major categories—baskets, plates, jars, boxes, vases, screens, animals, figures, buildings, furniture, lamps, and utensils—with more than seven thousand designs and varieties. Its production process is quite complex, generally passing through design, shaping, mold making, material estimation, processing of bamboo thread and strips, moth- and mildew-proofing, dyeing, weaving, carving of fittings, assembly, and lacquering. The working of bamboo thread and strips alone involves steps such as sawing the bamboo, bending it, splitting it, dividing it into sections, splitting strips, splitting thread, drawing strips, scraping thread, and scraping strips; there are, moreover, more than one hundred weaving techniques. Shengzhou bamboo weaving has four distinctive varieties: woven simulated animals, bleaching, flower-grain patterns, and blue-bodied lacquerware. Representative works include “Six Harmonies Pagoda,” “Yue Fei,” “Su Wu Herding Sheep,” and “The Six Steeds of Zhaoling.” The bamboo weaving “Nine Lions Playing with an Embroidered Ball” is displayed in the Zhejiang Hall of the Great Hall of the People and has been highly praised; the bamboo weaving “The Vast Sea Returns the Pearl,” presented by the Zhejiang Provincial People’s Government as a gift to the new government of the Macao Special Administrative Region, drew a chorus of acclaim. Shengzhou bamboo weaving is renowned for its exquisite weaving, its numerous techniques, and its rich variety of designs. Its weaving methods encompass both coarse and fine work. Fine weaving can fit 150 bamboo threads into a single inch—exquisite and delicate, thin as a cicada’s wing; coarse weaving makes full use of the elasticity of bamboo, with clever insertion and nimble weaving—bold and unconstrained, meticulous and plain.
Archival Record of Working Procedures
Its production process is quite complex, generally passing through design, shaping, mold making, material estimation, processing of bamboo thread and strips, moth- and mildew-proofing, dyeing, weaving, carving of fittings, assembly, and lacquering. The working of bamboo thread and strips alone involves steps such as sawing the bamboo, bending it, splitting it, dividing it into sections, splitting strips, splitting thread, drawing strips, scraping thread, and scraping strips; there are, moreover, more than one hundred weaving techniques.
Nine steps in preparing the splints
Preparing the splints alone involves nine steps, and there are more than a hundred weaving techniques in the full process.
Nine Lions and the Pearl Returned
Its signature works include Nine Lions Playing with an Embroidered Ball, displayed in the Great Hall of the People, and the Pearl Returned to the Sea.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The production areas of Shengzhou bamboo weaving are mainly downtown Shengzhou and the bamboo-producing townships of Cangyan, Changle, Chongren, Huangzhe, Tongyuan, Shihuang, and Ganlin. Craftsmen divided the work by category—baskets, plates, jars, boxes, vases, screens, animals, figures, buildings, furniture, lamps, and so on—with specialized workers for design, strip splitting, weaving, and assembly. In former times it was operated in workshop form; after 1949 it shifted to collective production and marketing, and besides domestic sales its products were exported overseas for a long time.
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04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Shengzhou bamboo weaving has a long history and deep cultural foundations; besides its extremely high practical and artistic value, it provides important clues for the study of the production history of bamboo weaving and of the folk customs and conditions of rural Jiangnan. Yu Zhanggen (official archive record of the associated inheritor): Male, Han ethnicity, born in 1932 in Shengzhou, Zhejiang. Representative inheritor of Shengzhou Bamboo Weaving, a national-level intangible cultural heritage project of the first batch, and Master of Chinese Arts and Crafts. Yu Zhanggen learned bamboo weaving from his father at the age of eight; in 1950 he entered a newly founded bamboo weaving enterprise to work in bamboo weaving; in 1958 he transferred to the Shengxian Craft Bamboo Weaving Factory, where he successively served as head of the innovative design group and director of the research institute until his retirement. Yu Zhanggen has practiced the art for more than sixty years. He has mastered all the weaving techniques of bamboo weaving art, combining coarse and fine work; in fine weaving he can fit 150 bamboo strips into a single inch—exquisite and delicate, thin as a cicada’s wing. At the same time, he has created more than ten new weaving techniques. He has successively created and woven more than two hundred kinds of bamboo products, pioneered woven animal-form bamboo products, and co-published the two reference books “Bamboo Weaving Craft” and “Bamboo Weaving” with his apprentices. His representative works include “Nine Lions Playing with an Embroidered Ball,” “Magu Offering Birthday Wishes,” and “A Flock of Chickens.”
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Yu Zhanggen 01-0119
- He Fuli 03-1265
- Song Zengli 03-1266
- Mou Bingheng 03-1267
- Liu Jiafeng 04-1794
- Su Chengjun 05-2640
- Chen Qinghe 05-2641
- Tian Xianmin 05-2642
- Wei Lumian 05-2643
- Tan Sujuan 05-2644
- Chen Yunhua 05-2645
- Zhao Sijin 05-2646
- Ding Zhiyun
- Hu Zhengren
- Lvcheng
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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