传统艺术保护——皮影木偶制作技艺 - 2016年07月08日

EDITOR'S Note

The marketplace at the popular Yuyuan Garden tourism area in Shanghai is a potpourri of traditional Chinese folk arts. Shanghai Daily is running a series on the craftsmen who are car­rying ancient culture into the modern age.

YIN Xiaoling, 57, was born and raised in Xi’an, capital city of northwest China’s Shaanxi Province and cradle of shadow puppetry. For years, she has been delighting visitors at the folk handicrafts market at Yuyuan Garden in Shanghai.

She developed a love of puppets from an aunt, who was an accomplished artisan in the genre.

On the walls of her tiny stall at the market, ancient generals, princesses and traditional gods give a sense of timelessness to her art. The puppets will last several decades if properly cared for.

Endearing as the tradition is, it was banned during the “cultural revolution” (1966-76) because it was considered superstitious.

“The craft was considered to be incompatible with ‘modern’ society, and my aunt warned me not to take the puppets outside of home to avoid trouble,” Yin recalls.

The first shadow puppetry show was said to have been staged at the royal court in Xi’an about 2,000 years ago. It emanated from the creation of a puppet figure honoring one of the emperor’s beloved concubines, who had died.

In time, shadow plays became an integral part of rural culture. Nowadays, preservation of traditional folk arts is a key plank of government cultural policies.

Yin was fascinated by colorful puppets with movable parts. Once the “cultural revolution” had ended, she threw herself into puppet-making. She was apprenticed to Wang Tianwen, a top master of the art form, and spent three years working under him.

“It doesn’t require any previous arts training, but it does take practice,” she says.

While there are many different genres of shadow puppetry in China, the Shaanxi version is best known for its highly developed techniques.

The folk art typically uses semi-transparent calfskin, which is scraped clean, washed and dried. According to tradition, the skin is then spread on a board made from jujube wood, and the craftsman uses special tools to shape the features.

“This unique technique involves precise carving to create the most delicate patterns, such as hair and beards,” Yin explains.

Using dozens of carving tools with different heads, the craftsman carefully chisels away the skin to make body parts, which are subsequently dyed with pigments blended with fish glue. Then the parts are assembled into the finished figure.

Sometimes, old techniques have been updated.

“For expediency and efficiency, we now apply modern chemicals instead of natural ingredients,” Yin says. “They are much better in retaining colors.”

Training and practice create a true master of the art.

“There are many tricks of the trade, from what to carve first to how to carve certain patterns,” she notes. “It’s hard to prepare the tools and get the right mixture of pigments and glue.”

It took Yin a day or two to make a more complicated puppet in her “prime time.”

“When I am working on a puppet, I don’t welcome distractions and I eat very little,” she says. “I have to concentrate on what I am doing.”

Yin now ranks among the most acclaimed masters of the craft in China.

She says the early 1980s was an “age of renaissance” for Chinese craftsmen, and those who were expert in their handicrafts enjoyed dignity and honor. That’s not so much the case today.

“We are craftsmen, not artists,” she says. “Unfortunately, craftsmanship like this tends to be undervalued by the public, and puppets are not as highly regarded as, say, paintings.”

As an apprentice, she earned 52 yuan (US$7.80) making six puppets a month, when the average monthly salary of industrial workers in larger cities like Shanghai was only about 40 yuan. But the market economy in China has reversed those income standards.

Yin married a man from Shanghai in the late 1980s and was selling puppets at a stand in the Shanghai Friendship Store in the mid-1990s. At that time, only foreigners were allowed into the store. Her puppets sold for up to 500 yuan apiece, while the average monthly salary in Shanghai at that time was about 800 yuan.

“I didn’t profit much because the stall rental was very expensive,” she says.

Nowadays, Yin’s best pieces sell for between 1,000 yuan and 2,000 yuan.

In Shaanxi Province today, only 20 to 30 craftsmen in shadow puppetry remain active. Many struggle to make ends meet, with fully hand-crafted works selling for as low as 100 yuan apiece.

A craftsman can work for 20-40 years before failing eyesight and shaky hands force retirement. Indeed, Yin herself is about to retire.

Yin’s husband, Zhang Jian, began working alongside her some 20 years ago. He was actually a bus company employee when they met, but her enthusiasm for puppetry drew him into the craft. With his larger hands, he can manipulate four puppets at the same time in a shadow play. That’s especially important in fight scenes, Yin says.

“Nothing is too hard in learning shadow puppetry if you put your heart into it,” says Zhang, who helps out at the stall in the Yuyuan Garden.

Both Yin and Zhang are always delighted when Chinese and foreign visitors to the market stop and admire their skills.

“I’m especially proud to be able to present this traditional, ancient craft to foreigners because many of them have never seen anything like this before,” she says. “It’s so Chinese.”