The Millennium Lake Pen Lonely Sticks to the Investigation of the Traditional Pen Industry in the Electronic Age

At the beginning of this month, five projects including the four treasures of the Wenfang were identified as Zhejiang Province's “National Intangible Cultural Heritage Masterpiece” project. The first brush of the four treasures of the study is made by Huzhou Shanyu. It is called “Hu pen” and it is said that it was created by the general of the Qin Dynasty. Since the ancient times, "Mao Yingzhi's armor world", but in today's goodness, whether it is a large-scale pen factory or a small street workshop, almost no young people can be seen in the pen-making master. "Under the age of 40, there will be no more than ten people who will make a lake pen. In a few decades, no one will know it." The teacher of the pen factory said that he shook his head. At a time when the network is sweeping the world, in the electronic age where the keyboard has gradually replaced the pen, is there still room for survival in the Millennium Lake pen? Is there a bright color in its future?

120 manual processes are written

Yang Xinlin’s Yizhuangtang is located in Zhongxing Street, Shanzi Town, Nanxun, Huzhou. It is separated from his pen-painted wall by the China Lake Pen Museum, which the locals call “Penzu Temple”, which enshrines the Qin Dynasty generals and The statue of Mrs. Bu's, it is said that the lake pen was created more than two thousand years ago when General Meng Jun passed by.

On September 26th, the hot autumn heat has not faded. Yang Xinlin has already begun planning for a month to celebrate the activities of the ancestors. As the vice president of the Shantou Lake Pen Association, such activities can recall people's enthusiasm for the lake pen, Yang Xinlin himself does not know. The lake pen business is getting harder and harder to do. There are fewer and fewer people writing pens in this town, and fewer young people will make pens.

In a village house not far from the Art Hall, Yang Xinlin’s apprentice Yao Xinggen and his wife Yao Yuying are burying their heads. In the bamboo poles outside the house, there are already written pens, and the interior of the house is full of finished and semi-finished writing brushes. "This is the sheep made of wool. The brown wolf is made of the hair of the weasel. This is called purple, the most expensive, it is made with the most valuable hair of the hare." Speaking of these pens, Yao Xinggen is like a few treasures.

Making the pen is the most important process of the lake pen, almost entirely by manual operation. The female "water basin" and the male "selection pen" are the two major processes for making the writing.

The so-called "water basin" is because this process is basically done by soaking hands in a basin filled with water, and it is also the first step in making a pen. Yao Yuying sat in front of a water basin in front of the window, wet the wool entangled with a group of water, combed it over and over with a beef bone comb until the wool was smoothed out, and there were some sharp edges.

"Those who have no front hair and hairs should be picked up," Yao said. There is a translucent and tough tip at the tip of each hair. This is the front of the brush, and the front brush can write the front. When picking up the hair, use the right thumb and the blade to clip the hair together, so the thumb joint of Yao Yuying's right hand has a thick flaw, and the year-round soaking makes it look more like a big blisters.

The pen is the man's specialty, although it doesn't require a hand to soak in the water, but it is very expensive. “The finished pen should be like a bamboo shoot.” Yao Xinggen used a knife to bend and a long knife to trim the pen to perfection. The selected pen is placed in the paste of the carrageenan and soaked in the paste. Once dried, it can be packed on the counter.

"Don't look at a small lake pen, do a good job of more than one hundred and twenty procedures." Yang Xinlin himself is also a choice of pens, and he has a deep relationship with the pen for his half-life. "The light is the basin and the tool for selecting the pen. There are bone comb, sickle, pen knife, pencil sharpener, tapping ruler, picking knife... Only the pen can be machined now, and the pen is almost handmade."

Four generations of pens are still lacking

In a Jiangnan residential house with a white wall and black tiles in Shanyu Town, Shen Jinhua’s old man and his wife are busy packing the gift pens of the recently made horns. They are the old pens for Huzhou Wang Yizhai. Systematic. "A gift box can be sold for 1600 pieces." The old man is very proud of his craft.

Shen Jinhua started writing at the age of 14 and is 75 years old this year. His family used to work in the lake pen industry for four generations. Although I didn't create my own brand, some famous pens often asked Lao Shen to help me. When he was old, he and his neighbors played mahjong, but when he was interested, he would also work with his wife to make a few pens at home according to the old rules of "women’s choice of pens," to earn some pocket money. I can't let go of this selection of pens for decades.

Lao Shen has 3 women and 2 children, all of whom are doing pens or doing business. But by the fifth generation of grandchildren, this ancestral craft could not be passed down. Lao Shen has two grandchildren. The grandson is 25 years old. He stayed in Shanghai after graduating from college. His grandson is 21 years old. He is a good employee of a dyeing workshop.

Shen Jinhua’s wife, Nei Shui Na, has fallen into rheumatism and skin diseases because of the water basin all the year round. “If you use warm water to make the basin, the hair will become soft and it is not suitable to make a pen. So you must use cold water to make the basin. So in the winter, the hand will be It is easy to get frostbite." When the pen workers earned seven or eight hundred yuan a month, Shen Jinhua’s grandchildren chose to give up. "The current pen-making master’s salary is too small. At 8 o'clock in the morning, it is 6 o'clock in the evening. "Shen Jinhua told reporters, "There is little bit of money, and no one in the young people wants to learn this now."

"I don't want the next generation to continue to make a pen. It's too hard to learn this craft. But I don't see the craftsmanship of this biography inherited. I always have some guilty ancestors." Shen Jinhua was caught in a dilemma.

Less than 10 people under the age of 40

Originally, Shannon held a technical comparison of lake pens every two years. This is a good opportunity to discover seedlings and inheritance skills. However, this year it was closed. The reason is that the town’s 1,500 pen-making masters are less than 10 under 40 years old. people. In the workshop of the Shanhu Lake Pen Factory, the largest lake pen factory in Shanshan, the teachers who are looking at the hair and wearing reading glasses are basically looking at them.

On the second floor of the Shannon Lake Pen Factory, the 53-year-old Zhu Jinmao lowered his head and carefully removed the hair from the tip of a well-defined brush. Lao Zhu chose to write for more than 20 years, and now he can choose thirty or fifty pens every day. Each brush is between 2 and 7 cents according to the size of the pen. Even if you work hard to choose 50 pens, you only have 30 yuan. Master Zhu’s son is 24 years old and works in a sound factory. “He never thought about going to work at the lake pen factory.” Lao Zhu told reporters.

At the other end of the factory, Li Jiamin, who is working as a temporary worker in the factory, is seriously engraving on the pen. She is one of the rare young people in the pen factory. Li Jiamin is 23 years old this year. He graduated from Linhu Technical School in the past few years. Whenever the school is on a cold summer vacation, Jia Min will go to the factory to work as a lettering. Jiamin's mother is an old employee of the Lake Pen Factory. She has been engaged in lettering for more than 20 years and will retire next year. Li Jiamin said that when her mother retires next year, she will not come to the lettering - the engraving income is low, she does not intend to use lettering as her future life.

- Viewpoint survey

Lake pen industry has shrunk sharply in the past 20 years

The good-selling pen industry began in the Jin Dynasty. According to the Qing Dynasty Tongzhi "Huzhou Fuzhi" contains: "(Shenzhen) a good practice, ... the residents are the most refined pens, cover the wisdom of Yong Yong (Sui Dynasty people, famous Wang Fa Extremely, Wang Xizhi's Seventh Sun, the knots of Lianxi to Yongxin Temple, the pen is the work." And the lake pen is famous in the world, when the Yuan Dynasty was six or seven hundred years ago. Before the Yuan Dynasty, Xuanbi was the most famous in the country. Both Su Dongpo and Liu Gongquan like to use Xuanzhou pens. After the Yuan Dynasty, Xuanpen gradually replaced the lake pen and laid the crown of the brush. The lake pen is known as the “four treasures of the Wenfang” together with Huimo, Duanqi and Xuan paper.

In the 1970s and 1980s, most of the good-natured people still made a living by making pens. "At that time, the largest and largest group of social enterprise enterprises was the lake pen manufacturing factory. Each commune had a lake pen factory, and the number of people who were good at making pens was tens of thousands. The income created by the lake pen accounted for three-thirds of the total economic income at that time. 1. At that time, Yang Xinlin became an employee of the Hubei Pen Second Factory.

In the new century, a large number of pen-making workers began to divert, and they chose industries with higher profits and easier woolen fabrics and packaging. The production of lake pens began to shrink. “Although many small workshops have risen since the 1990s, they have made pens. The people are actually gradually decreasing."

Today's good pen industry can create an annual profit of 50 million yuan, accounting for only one-tenth of the total economic output. In addition to the Shantou Lake Pen Factory and the Hanshan Lake Pen Factory, which can generate profits of about 5 million yuan per year, the remaining hand workshops only have tens of thousands of yuan in income each year.

Lake pen decline stems from market shrinkage

The complicated process makes this technique not so easy to learn. In the pen-making master, there is a saying that “three years and three years of apprenticeship is done for four and a half years”, that is, the entry for three years is at least, and the next four years will also be learned. Just do the calculations.

“The hard work and low income make young people reluctant to make pens.” Li Jincai, director of Shanyu Lake Pen Factory, told reporters, “But the main reason is that the use of writing brushes has been greatly reduced in recent years, and the market demand is small.”

People's writing habits have made the writing space of the writing brush smaller and smaller. Previously, primary and secondary schools used writing brush writing as a compulsory course, but now they are only interested in class for students to take. Although some elderly people will practice calligraphy in their later years and make Chinese paintings, they are a minority. Now 70% of the lake pens are exported to Japan and South Korea, and domestic demand has been greatly reduced. Yang Xinlin’s store in Shanghai has a turnover of 20,000 this month, only half of what it was last month. “The amount of retail is getting less and less.”

In addition, all kinds of raw materials continue to rise, and the pressure on the lake pen is continuously pressured: "Our mountain wool is the fine wool that goes to the upper side of the captain. It must be the hair on the back and neck, because the friction here is compared. Less, Mao Youfeng here, such a hair must be a few hundred pounds a pound, good to thousands."

- depth of view

Watch alone in loneliness

"It is unlikely that the lake pen will be revived as it was in the past. After all, the market has become too small." Yang Xinlin is quite emotional. "In terms of the economy, the pen industry is no longer the main economic pillar. However, from the perspective of feelings and culture, I hope that the government will do more to protect the lake pen."

In the view of Wang Dongling, professor of the Chinese Academy of Fine Arts, and Zhao Yanjun, deputy director of the Provincial Museum, a considerable part of traditional art will gradually decline with the development of the times and science and technology. This is normal, "the artistic function of calligraphy." It has replaced its practical functions, as well as the technology of lake pen production.” In the eyes of experts, the government may not do more to revitalize, but how to protect and pass on.

In fact, the Huzhou Municipal Government has done a lot of things for the Lake Pen, such as helping companies apply for the “Hu Pen” trademark, and applying for the intangible cultural heritage for the Lake Pen is also to make this national craft intact and healthy. But for pen companies, the more direct is probably the amount of investment, because it directly affects whether some manual techniques are followed by people. "The West and Japan have allocated special funds for some traditional crafts and traditional artists. I hope that the Lake Pen will enjoy this treatment in the future." When it comes to the future, whether it is Shen Jinhua or Yang Xinlin, in addition to a time mill in tone. In addition to the tenacity, there is also a hint of loneliness, just like the millennium lake pen watched in loneliness.

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