A new documentary miniseries showcases Chinese craft inheritors and their stories.
"I once made a piece of bamboo carving work with my name and my wife's on the bottom, and my daughters' on the top. I think it links the European and Chinese," says Sebastien Puydebois, who is obsessed with bamboo carving.
The 46-year-old French man is the first foreign apprentice of Changzhou bamboo carving, one of China's intangible cultural heritages.
Puydebois' love for bamboo carving started with his interest in bamboo and its culture. When he learned on the internet in 2014 about Bai Jianren, a master of Changzhou bamboo carving, Puydebois paid a visit to Bai's bamboo carving museum.
Bai Jianren, a master of Changzhou bamboo carving, inherited the skills because of what his father, who was an authority on bamboo carving, used to say.
"Once he said, 'I'm the first generation and will be the last one.' That really touched me," Bai says. "It would always bother him if his son - me - didn't learn the skill."
Bai accepted the task and completed the family inheritance of bamboo carving.
His apprentice Shao Fengfeng represents the social succession.
"I started to learn bamboo carving in 1978 when I was 18," Shao says. "But master refused clearly to take me as his apprentice at that time. And it took me another six years to finally gain his recognition."
Bai and Shao choose different ways of innovation and inheritance. At the same time, however, the knowledge and technique of bamboo carving remain the same within them.
扫一扫在手机打开当前页  |
