Young people who restore documents must be able to endure loneliness, have awe and sense of responsibility for documents
At 8 o'clock in the morning on July 13, Song Jing came to the National Library of China to start a day's work.
In the National Library of Ancient Books, the studio of the Document Restoration Group is located on the right hand corner of the first floor of the main building.
To enter the studio, one must pass through a double wooden door. Just above the inside of the wooden door, there is a brass bell hanging. The wooden door is pushed open, touching the bell, and it makes a crisp sound.
In 2015, after graduating with a master's degree, Song Jing went to work in the Document Restoration Group. At that time, Bell was already there.
"Someone comes in during working hours. When the bell rang, remind the people in the room to see if it's your own." Because next to the lending office, occasionally readers would open the door and try to find out.
The entire industry began to "out of the circle" in Song Jing's second year of employment. That year, "I repaired cultural relics in the Forbidden City" was broadcast.
More and more people are paying attention to the restoration of cultural relics, and Song Jing thinks it is a good thing.
This year's graduation season, she asked some graduates on Weibo to ask for help: "Which way should I go for restoration of ancient books?"
"Many industries are interesting to look outside the door. Only after you enter the door can you see the other side that may not be so interesting." Song Jing said, "Learn about an industry in as many ways as possible, and see what is lively in your heart. Still love it, then choose."
One leaf ancient book fills up dozens of wormholes
Before 8:30 in the morning, the copper bell at the door rang again and again, and the restoration staff of the Document Restoration Group arrived on duty one after another.
Soon, several restoration staff worked together to lift a portrait of an ancestor from the Qing Dynasty, spread it on the large workbench at the entrance, picked up the brown hair brush, and splashed water on the portrait together.
In fact, this ancestor portrait has been repaired and mounted. In order to make the repaired painting smoother, it has to go through procedures such as wall mounting, calendering, and pole mounting before entering the warehouse.
A huge "paper wall" stands a few steps away from the workbench. It was built by the whole team and used to dry large-scale ancient paintings and rubbings.
Once the portrait is on the wall, one cannot leave.
"The surrounding circle is pasted with paste. It dries slowly, and the painting core dries quickly. Once it shrinks, the painting will not stick." Song Jing explained, "You have to observe at any time, and water the painting core at any time to ensure that the entire painting The drying progress of the painting is the same."
In the concept of the document restoration staff, keeping on guarding the paintings on the wall can only be regarded as manual work. What really makes people crazy is the technical problems that arise at any time during the work.
To repair an ancient book, you must first disassemble the leaf of the book. After the repair is completed, spray water on the leaf, and then flatten it with a lead mound before binding it into a book.
Although the ancient books use the same batch of paper, the thickness of the paper is not exactly the same.
When she first started to edit the book independently, Song Jing couldn't control the amount of water sprayed, which caused each leaf of paper to expand and contract differently after absorbing water.
When I finished repairing a book, I found that there are always leaves on one side of the book that are not aligned.
"Then you can only re-spray water leaf by leaf, adjust and press again." Song Jing said.
Winter is okay. In summer, there is a risk of spraying too much water on the book leaves-easy to mold.
More often, document restoration personnel have to face the dual challenges of patience and technology.
For example, fill the wormhole to test everyone's mentality.
In an ancient book, thirty or forty small wormholes are densely lined up, and repairers need to fill them up with paper one by one.
What's more troublesome is that insects always like to aim at one position and drill from head to end. How to avoid the thickening of the same position of the book leaf due to repairing, also needs to design in advance.
In addition to insect bites, some ancient books have been soaked in water, the leaves of the book stick together and cannot be opened, and some parts have mildew, making it more difficult to separate.
In order to uncover a leaf book, Song Jing spent several days.
"But I don't think about'how to uncover a leaf', but I think'a leaf has been uncovered.' Seeing the words in the book finally appear, that great sense of accomplishment can offset all the difficulties."
Follow the master to learn from imitation
"It is not a good job to keep the old thing." "A good worker must have the hand to repair the sky, the eye of the lice, the wisdom and the spirit, the heart is as fine as a hair. Those who fill this role are worthy of trust." This is Zhou Jiaxuan in the Ming Dynasty. The requirements for the restorer of ancient books in the "Decoration History".
Du Weisheng, a research librarian at the National Library of Ancient Books, once pointed out that the restoration of ancient books involves multi-disciplinary knowledge, not only must master the superb restoration technology, but also a certain degree of knowledge of physics, chemistry, printing, papermaking and other disciplines, and can only be used in the rescue and restoration of ancient books. Handy.
For this reason, there are many young people with different academic backgrounds in the ancient book restoration team of the National Library.
"In our room, in addition to the ancient book restoration professional, there are also chemical materials and art history studies. I study cultural relics protection. Some people can do paper fiber composition testing, and some people can make paper in the laboratory by themselves." Song Jing Say.
After the newcomers with different professional backgrounds formally enter the group, they must follow the master to learn restoration from scratch.
Among these, the most important thing is to observe and imitate.
The old "newcomers" will pass on their experience to the next newcomers: "Don't ask'why do this" as soon as you come up. You can imitate first, and many questions can be answered. After that, the questions you ask Is valuable."
In the first year of entering the museum, newcomers are unskilled and cannot touch ancient books. This is a rule that has never been broken.
When can I edit the book independently?
No one can give a clear answer.
There are several stages to learn about comprehension in book repairing-first learn knowledge and practice basic skills, then give hands to the master, and then perform repairs under the guidance of the master until the master feels that "it is okay."
"It’s a lay-off, but it’s actually a disservice. The book leaves are not flat and the master presses it again, and the book edge is not aligned with the master again. But everyone knows that no one can do it well as soon as they come up. There is a gradual adaptation. The process of growing up." Song Jing recalled.
She couldn't remember how long she had been with the master before finally being independently responsible for the restoration project.
In addition to mastering knowledge about book binding, restoration materials, restoration techniques, etc., the most important influence that the master-apprentice training method brings to her is the habit formation. For example, the water cup cannot be placed on the table to prevent the ancient books from getting wet; the hand cream cannot be applied to work, because The hand cream will rub against the ancient books; high heels are not allowed to prevent falling and damaging the ancient books; when moving the ancient books, you need to pad the cardboard underneath, and move the cardboard...
Six years ago, when Song Jing was just studying with the master, in the studio, the masters sat in a row, the apprentices sat in a row, and there was an aisle in the middle. If you have any questions, please ask the master at any time.
Later, I repaired it independently, but was it really "okay"?
Song Jing shook her head.
Because with the change of work content, there are always various new problems.
"Maybe after 10 years of work, I have encountered a new problem and I have to ask the master."
A profession that makes people fall in love easily
"More and more people are paying attention to the cultural relics restoration industry, which is a good thing." Song Jing said.
In 1949, "Zhaocheng Golden Collection" arrived at the Peking Library, the predecessor of the National Library. At that time, there were only 4 document restoration personnel in the library.
Today, the document restoration team of the National Library has expanded to 17 people.
However, in the ancient book reading room of the National Library of China, many ancient books are still not open for borrowing, and the status of readers is "pending repair" when inquiring.
"Some readers have complained about why an ancient book has been'waiting for restoration'. In fact, we are also in a hurry, but there are many books to be restored and few people who repair them, so we can only wait." Song Jing said.
She looks forward to more people joining the team: "The sooner you determine your direction, the more time you have to plan your study and professional choices, and then determine if you really love this profession."
When she was in high school, Song Jing was a loyal viewer of CCTV's "Discovery and Discovery" column. From then on, she fell in love with cultural relics and later read a lot of books on cultural relics and archaeology.
"Let the beautiful things of ancient times be seen by people" is her original intention to choose the direction of cultural relic protection.
After confirming the general direction, Song Jing began the next step by going online to find out which colleges and universities have opened cultural relics-related majors, which directions are under the majors, which courses are set up, and which textbooks are used.
Since many of the courses of the cultural relics protection major are related to chemistry, when she was in college, Song Jing chose chemistry, cultural relics and museums as a double major.
"The deeper you understand, the more you will find that your interest in each subdivision is different. Compared to when I was in high school, now middle school students can choose to participate in more hobby activities and courses, and experience the process of cultural relic restoration in advance. "
In Song Jing's view, it is necessary to endure loneliness when doing document restoration, and to have the most basic awe and sense of responsibility for documents.
"Every job we do is responsible for something, but we are responsible for the literature."
"Document restoration is a profession that is easy for people to fall in love with." Song Jing said, "When you look at the ancient book in front of you, thinking that it has appeared on many people's desks, looking at some manuscripts, there is a certain history on it. With the signatures or seals of the characters, you can imagine the scene when they opened the book back then. The feeling is very strange."
Beijing News reporter Feng Yajun