China News Service, Fuzhou, February 24th: Taiwan’s lanterns reflect the cross-strait
China News Service reporter Yan Xu
"Be careful not to apply the paint beyond the black line; the flowers can be painted in the color you like, and the leaves here are painted green..." On February 24, the Lantern Festival, more than a hundred people including Taiwanese compatriots and marriage and family representatives from both sides of the Taiwan Strait gathered together Gathering happily at the Fuzhou Taiwan Association Hall, under the guidance of Kang Guixu, the inheritor of traditional lanterns in Lan (abbreviation of Pingtan) Taiwan, the children of Taiwan compatriots turned into "little lanternmakers" and painted colorful lanterns.
Kang Guixu got up at five o'clock in the morning and started getting ready.
"Lanterns can be a carrier of communication between people. Through the creative process, parents learn how to guide their children; the inheritance of intangible cultural heritage projects requires people's participation, and children's participation in production is a continuing process." She told a reporter from China News Service explain.
On February 24, at the Fuzhou Taiwan Association Hall, Kang Guixuan, the inheritor of Lantai traditional lanterns, was instructing the children of Taiwanese compatriots to draw lanterns.
Photo by China News Service reporter Yan Xu
Kang Guixu calls herself "the daughter of Pingtan and the daughter-in-law of Taiwan."
She was born in Pingtan. When she was young, she and her parents often went to visit relatives in Taiwan, which is across the water. After getting married in Taiwan in 2008, she lived on the other side.
While in Taiwan, she met Xie Zhicheng, the second-generation inheritor of the "Traditional Chinese Lantern Tourist Factory" whose ancestral home is Minhou, Fuzhou, and began to learn the art of making umbrella lanterns under his professor.
In November 2011, the mainland's first high-speed ro-ro passenger ship to Taiwan, the "Strait", set sail from Pingtan, opening a convenient maritime channel for the exchange of people and goods from "Pingtan to Taiwan". Kang Guixuan immediately came up with the idea of turning Taiwan's umbrella lanterns into The idea of bringing the story to Pingtan.
This idea became a reality in 2018.
She founded Guixu (Fujian) Cultural Communication Co., Ltd. in Pingtan, and opened a Taiwanese Folk Painted Umbrella Lantern Experience Center in the Taiwanese town of Pingtan.
All umbrella lanterns on display are shipped from Taichung Port and transported to Pingtan via the "Strait".
The craftsmanship of Lantai's traditional lanterns originated from the combination of Fujian Minhou oil umbrellas and Quanzhou lanterns, and now it has been brought back to Pingtan by Kang Guixiu.
In 2019, "Lantai Traditional Lantern" was selected into the first batch of district-level intangible cultural heritage representative projects in the Pingtan Comprehensive Experimental Zone.
On February 24, at the Fuzhou Taiwanese Association, Kang Guixiu shared knowledge about traditional Lantai lanterns with Taiwanese compatriots and marriage and family representatives from both sides of the Taiwan Strait.
Photo by China News Service reporter Yan Xu
“Each lantern is purely handmade, and the frame inside is Taiwan’s wild alpine osmanthus bamboo, which is only picked every three years, and must be spring bamboo after the winter bamboo shoots.” When it comes to lantern making, Kang Gui’s basket is treasured in many households, “It takes a lot of time to make a lantern. It takes 21 processes and 35 working days to make the bamboos waterproof and anti-corrosive, from bamboo strips to bamboo strips to lanterns, which is not easy."
Because of this, the number of craftsmen making lanterns by hand is decreasing.
The traditional wind lantern craftsmanship was also widely circulated among the people in Pingtan, but due to the changes of the times, it is faced with the situation of no one to inherit it.
Therefore, Kang Guixu decided to pass on the lantern culture, create cultural and creative lanterns belonging to Pingtan, and carry forward this traditional craft.
In the Fuzhou Taiwanese Guild Hall, 66 traditional Lantai lanterns of various types, including floral cloth, hand-painted, highlight dyeing, bamboo weaving, and shell carving, are on display since before the Lunar New Year. .
Among them, several shell-carved lanterns are particularly eye-catching.
Fujian (Pingtan) shell carving is the sixth batch of representative projects of intangible cultural heritage in Fujian Province. It uses the natural color, texture and shape of shells to be artistically conceived, polished and carved, and pasted into arts and crafts.
"The combination of provincial-level intangible cultural heritage and district-level intangible cultural heritage will definitely shine." With this idea, Kang Guixu invited Pingtan shell carving artists to jointly develop new cultural and creative products, and the shell carving lantern was born.
Black butterfly shells are carved into the shape of Shipaiyang and pasted on the surface of the umbrella lantern. A magpie is perched on the reef. The "Strait" is cutting through the waves on the sea. The shell-carved lanterns have become handicrafts with Pingtan and Taiwanese characteristics, and also contain The beautiful meaning of "Two sides of the Taiwan Strait are one family".
Kang Guixu told reporters that through online promotion, shell carving lanterns are very popular among international friends.
Now, Kang Guixuan is planning to combine traditional Lantai lanterns with Fuzhou's botanical lacquer art to create bleached lacquer lanterns.
She hopes to produce more traditional lanterns that embody elements from both sides of the Taiwan Strait, and use each lantern to tell the story of both sides of the Taiwan Strait and convey the emotional connection between the two sides.
"The folk culture and humanistic history of both sides of the Taiwan Strait have deep roots, and what I have to do is to pick up the lantern part again and use it to build a bridge so that everyone can come and go frequently." Kang Guixu said.
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