[**Yangzhou Net Yangzhou People's Livelihood].
Hong Taikun and the waist basket he weaved. Photo by Meng Jian.
At the age of 12, he began to make bamboo weaving and has persisted until now. "Yesterday, Hong Taikun of the Hong Group of Chengyi Village, Putou Town, Jiangdu was busy weaving waist baskets, and there were more than a dozen finished products at home. Selecting bamboo, splitting bamboo, weaving, year after year, he has been "dealing" with this craft for more than half a century.
The teenager learns art just to beg for food.
When I was young, bamboo weaving products were still more commonly used. Hong Taikun said that when he was 12 years old, in order to be able to beg for food in the future, he began to learn to weave waist baskets from the village craftsmen. Rural people like to tie a waist basket around their waists, put crop seeds inside, and take them away when planting for easy sowing.
Hong Taikun said that from the day he learned it, he began to weave waist baskets, and after weaving them, he took them to the market town to sell. Every year, he will knit some, and he has insisted on it until now, and he has insisted on the craft of weaving waist baskets for 64 years.
Hong Taikun said that weaving waist baskets doesn't make much money, but since learning this craft, he doesn't feel comfortable not weaving some every year. As soon as he was free, he would collect bamboo and weave waist baskets, which became his habit.
The yield is not high, and at most two are made a day.
Hong Taikun said that weaving waist baskets is time-consuming and labor-intensive, and the output is not high, and only two can be woven a day at most. He only uses his free time to knit, and usually has to be busy with farm work and other things at home.
If you can't get up quickly, the bamboo chips and bamboo sharpeners are very sharp, and cuts often occur. Hong Taikun said that it is common for his hands to be cut, and more than 60 years have passed, even if he knits every year, he cannot guarantee that his hands will be cut.
Hong Taikun said that in the early days, the waist basket was not enough to sell, because in addition to using it to put seeds, rural people could also go out and put other things and tie them around their waists to do farm work. Since the slow rise of plastic products in the 80s of the last century, the waist basket he knitted has "fallen out of favor". Hong Taikun said that the bamboo waist basket seems to be a simple bamboo product, and its production process is not simple at all, from the selection of bamboo, cutting bamboo, breaking bamboo to weaving, every step can not be saved, every step must be fine, this is the requirement of handiwork.
In the past, there were many bamboo craftsmen in various places, and there were ...... who weaved mats, baskets, and basketsHong Taikun said that now in the countryside, it is basically impossible to see. Sometimes he brings a woven waist basket to sell, some young people are very curious to see it, and even many young people do not know what the bamboo tool he knits is used for in daily life, and young people are used to industrial products.
Envy the development of bamboo weaving culture in other places.
The bamboo strips in the hands of the bamboo slather are woven together, and it becomes a beautiful handicraft, which is a bamboo craft cultural and creative product that can be seen in many tourist attractions. But Hong Taikun has not heard of anyone in Yangzhou who weaves bamboo handicrafts for sale, and in his opinion, even if someone does this, it may not become the climate like in other places. In some places, bamboo weaving is still an old local non-genetic craft.
Young people don't learn, and old people either don't do it, or they can only make up some simple ones, and they can't find a market for complex ones. Hong Taikun said that like bamboo gourds, teapots, flower baskets, etc., it is okay to make one or two, but it is impossible to sell them if you make too much. The figure of the craftsman has gradually disappeared, and there are fewer and fewer old craftsmen who stick to this craft, Hong Taikun envies the combination of bamboo weaving art and local culture to develop characteristic tourism commodities, and those places give the old craftsmen a broader creative space and adhere to the "soil". Correspondent: Song Chenggang, Reporter: Meng Jian.
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