Chongming Island 崇明县 Bamboo Master
As many like him, Master Shi doesn't have anybody to teach his craft in order to pass the activity and transmit the knowledge. His son helps him in his business but has a different job inside the city. He is one of the few left inside the community who carries on this craftsmanship, and all the people doing it are getting older without seeing a future to their job.
Master Shi has been involved inside the Design Summer Camp organized by Tongji-Aalto-DuocUC Universities, sharing his knowledge and expertise with design students to help them create local product design.
Master Shi has been involved inside the Design Summer Camp organized by Tongji-Aalto-DuocUC Universities, sharing his knowledge and expertise with design students to help them create local product design.
One cannot live in Shanghai without having a small trip to Chongming Island, especially when interested in traditional craft. A dear Chinese friend and colleague from university took me and another Italian friend to visit Master Shi, a bamboo weaver who makes simple and beautiful objects for everyday use.
He's been doing this job for 50 years. It takes 3 years to learn and his mother was the one teaching him. He likes it and particularly enjoys producing one king of bamboo basket, his favorite and the most sold. This specific element takes around 3-4 hours to be finished. “It costs long time to prepare all the stripes to weave. To make a basket he will need 60 pieces of them, so more then one stick of bamboo” All the bamboo used for the manufacturing comes from the island, it needs to be 3 years old in order to result strong enough for the processing and the products are mainly bought by the Chongming community people for everyday life use (carry things around, storage rice, cook, etc.). It's a strong example of a local system supporting itself independently. All his products are related to the community's needs and traditional lifestyle, like traditional bamboo streamers weaved for restaurants on the island or one particular basket, quite complicated to produce (it takes a whole day) for which very thiny bamboo stripes are thightly weaved together in order to not let the rice grains out. This basket is used to let the rice dry outside the house while protected by the closed container. Each family has one and it's an important part of every Chinese kitchen. |
Master Shi usually works on demand, people ask him for specific products, size and quantity; for these “special” orders they go directly to his house/workshop, whereas more ordinary products are made and brought to the market to be sold. He never moves from the island, but with the construction of the bridge connecting Shanghai with Chongming more and more people started to come. Tourists wants traditional craftsmanship so they look up on the internet to check where to go and usually find out that Chongming has this kind of traditional production, so they come to the island and start asking around until people address them to Master Shi house. Of course after their experience they talk with friends and spread the voice about what sort of products can be found there, tempting more people to come.
|