[New Year Chronicle] "Post-90s" Yi nationality female doctors return home to start a business: expand overseas markets with new traditional skills
[Explanation] Near the Spring Festival of the Year of the Ox, in a timber processing factory in the suburbs of Xichang, Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province, workers are rushing to make the last orders before the Spring Festival.
Soon, these wooden parts will be transported to nearby Xide County and assembled into a bus station rich in Yi ethnicity.
[Explanation] In the corner of the factory, Yang Ding, a pregnant "post-90s" Yi female doctor, still insists on reaching the production line and communicating with the woodworker about the production details.
In order to protect the characteristic architectural culture of the Yi ethnic group, Yang Ding, who studied furniture design, gave up a high-paying job in Beijing and chose to return to his hometown of Daliang Mountain to start a business, presenting and spreading Yi ethnic traditional culture through furniture, architecture and other carriers.
Before officially establishing their own design brand in 2018, Yang Ding and his team spent 3 years conducting research in 17 counties (cities) in Liangshan Prefecture, and went into 230 households to collect traditional Yi building materials.
【Concurrent】Yi female doctor Yang Ding
I do this because I am a Yi nationality, and it is this culture that has given me such an ability and energy that allows me to do this.
In the process of urbanization in the past two years, we have seen a lot of Yi nationality characteristics of the house culture gradually disappear, so I also hope to combine my major and do some things related to cultural protection.
[Explanation] In order to balance the modern and traditional cultural elements of the product, Yang Ding invited many Yi craftsmen to participate in the design and production.
Under the collision of new and old thinking, they designed and produced products such as tables and chairs, sofas, pillows, fences, and bus stations based on Yi elements.
【Concurrent】Yi female doctor Yang Ding
What we do is not a symbolic design. It is a combination of our craftsmanship, materials, structure and some folklore backgrounds. It will be more three-dimensional, and the things we made will be more cultural.
It can string up handicrafts or industrial chains related to woodworking, carpentry and household products, which can make such an industrial ecology more sustainable, so that local employment can also achieve a sustainable state.
[Explanation] After the establishment of Yang Ding's brand, a large number of jobs were released in the production chain, driving more than 300 people in the fields of woodworking, lacquer painting, and Yi embroidery to find employment, including many formerly poor households.
For these traditional craftsmen, this female doctor who returned home to start a business also brought them new technologies and new ideas.
[Concurrent] Yi Carpenter Jiaxia Lasha
I think the chair designed by Dr. Yang Ding is very good. It embodies the patterns of the Yi ethnic group and incorporates modern popular elements.
Including the current bus station, it incorporates the patterns of the Yi nationality and the essence of the Yi residence.
[Concurrent] Qu Mu Shiwu, a craftsman of Yi nationality lacquerware
In the past, our Yi people's lacquerware was mainly Yi people's pots, pans and pans. Now we use (in) furniture, bus stops, etc., and integrate it into our daily lives.
Now that Sister Yang Ding designs here, we mainly paint some more modern products that are more in line with this era.
[Explanation] Today, the new-style Yi home furnishing products designed by Yang Ding have gone out of Daliang Mountain and even sold abroad to the United States and Canada. Last year, the total output value exceeded 3 million yuan.
Nowadays, like Yang Ding, there are more and more young people who choose to return to Liangshan to help their hometown develop. They are looking for new shining points in the inheritance of intangible cultural heritage such as Yi embroidery, Yi silver ornaments, and Yi lacquer art to help Yi traditional culture out of the mountain. .
【Concurrent】Yi female doctor Yang Ding
When studying and working in big cities, we will introduce to others that we are the Yi nationality from Liangshan. This identity and background actually give us a definition of where we come from.
At the same time, in big cities, we also learned a lot of modern sales or design, which opened our eyes.
When we look back at these things in our hometown, we can cherish its preciousness even more.
Maybe before we go out, we are in this environment. We feel it is accustomed to it, and we don't think it is shining, but when we go out and come back again, its value will be reflected.
Chen Xuanbin reports from Liangshan, Sichuan
Editor in charge: [Lu Yan]