Bamboo Weaving
01 · Historical Records
Ruichang bamboo weaving is found in the area of Ruichang City, Jiangxi Province. The locality has more than sixty thousand mu of mountain bamboo, with nearly ten varieties—including mao bamboo, jin bamboo, and water bamboo—available for selection as materials. Weaving is practiced mainly in family workshops and craft factories; the Ruichang Nanyi Bamboo Weaving Craft Factory, jointly established in 1981, has long undertaken export supply tasks, and its newly created modern bamboo-woven horticultural products are exported to Western Europe, Southeast Asia, and elsewhere.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Ruichang lies in the north-northwest of Jiangxi Province, on the south bank of the middle reaches of the Yangtze River. It has more than sixty thousand mu of mountain bamboo, including nearly ten varieties such as mao bamboo, jin bamboo, and water bamboo. Ruichang bamboo weaving has complex process steps and high, demanding weaving requirements; moreover, with its numerous varieties, the related weaving work is very difficult to replace with modern machine production. The main products of Ruichang bamboo weaving include beds, tables, chairs, stools, cabinets, winnowing baskets, rice sieves, dou (bamboo carrying baskets), and cool mats; in recent years more than one hundred new varieties have been developed, including flowerpots, flower baskets, chickens, ducks, turtles, fruit boxes, birds and animals, and gift boxes. These bamboo-woven products are fine and exquisite, beautiful and practical—all of them rare craft treasures. On the other hand, Ruichang bamboo weaving techniques are complex and somewhat difficult to master, so young people are mostly unwilling to learn and inherit them, while the older craftsmen are growing old and many can no longer continue working.
Archival Record of Working Procedures
Ruichang bamboo weaving has complex process steps and high, demanding weaving requirements; moreover, with its numerous varieties, the related weaving work is very difficult to replace with modern machine production.
Bamboo baskets from the bronze-mine site
Complete bamboo baskets for carrying ore were unearthed at the local Shang-Zhou bronze-mining site, and bamboo wares still serve daily life there.
Song Zengli and Tian Xianmin
Song Zengli's first basket of 1937 still survives; his pupil Tian Xianmin, born in 1951, now trains more than a hundred apprentices.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Ruichang bamboo weaving techniques have a long history: in the locality’s Shang and Zhou dynasty ancient copper-mining smelting sites, bamboo baskets used to transport ore were once excavated intact. In the Ruichang area, bamboo weaving is needed everywhere at all times; the technique is closely bound up with people’s lives.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Shengzhou Bamboo Weaving · Bamboo Weaving · Bamboo Weaving · Bamboo Weaving · Bamboo Weaving · Bamboo Weaving · Bamboo Weaving · Bamboo Weaving · Bamboo Weaving · Bamboo Weaving · Bamboo Weaving.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Over thousands of years, through the inheritance and development of countless craftsmen, Ruichang bamboo weaving has formed its own distinctive style. At present this traditional handicraft is gradually moving out of the forested areas and into modern metropolises to seek development. Ruichang bamboo weaving techniques lack successors and their prospects are worrying; rescue and protection are urgently needed. Song Zengli (official archive record of the associated inheritor): The bamboo-woven craft articles he made were fine, meticulous, and durable; his first work, a bamboo basket woven in 1937, still survives today (and has been collected). Male, Han ethnicity, born in October 1926 in Ruichang City, Jiangxi Province; died in December 2010. Representative inheritor of Bamboo Weaving (Ruichang Bamboo Weaving), a national-level intangible cultural heritage project of the third batch. He was devoted to passing on Ruichang bamboo weaving techniques and, during his lifetime, trained a group of bamboo weaving inheritors including Tian Xianmin and Chen Rujin. Tian Xianmin (official archive record of the associated inheritor): Male, Han ethnicity, born in November 1951 in Ruichang City, Jiangxi Province. After graduating from junior middle school in 1966, he apprenticed under Song Zengli to learn bamboo weaving, and later continued to make woven goods while farming. Through long practice he has fully mastered all the techniques of Ruichang bamboo weaving; his works have handsome forms, fine workmanship, and solid durability. In 1981 he jointly established the Ruichang Nanyi Bamboo Weaving Craft Factory with others, and is currently its factory director. The factory was once an advanced unit in supplying export products to the Jiangxi Provincial Department of Foreign Trade. Its newly created modern bamboo-woven horticultural products are exported to Western Europe, Southeast Asia, and elsewhere. He has long run training classes to pass on the techniques, with more than a hundred people trained. His direct disciples include Lei Baohong, Zhou Hui, and Tian Xuemei. Representative inheritor of Bamboo Weaving (Ruichang Bamboo Weaving), a national-level intangible cultural heritage project of the fifth batch. His works have participated in bamboo industry expositions and other events and have won awards.
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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